Predicting the future is notoriously difficult. Who could have imagined, in the mid 1970s, for example, that by the end of the 20th century, computers would be as common in people’s homes as TV sets? In the 1970s, computers were common enough, but only in big business, government departments, and large organizations. These were the so-called mainframe machines.
    众所周知，预测未来相当困难。比如20世纪70年代，谁曾想20世纪末，计算机会像电视一样普及？在20世纪70年代，电脑是很常见，但是仅在大公司、政府部门、和大的组织，它们被称作“主机”。
    PS: Who could have imagined, 谁曾想

    Mainframe computers were very large indeed, often occupying whole air-conditioned rooms, employing full-time technicians and run on specially-wriiten software. Though these large machines still exist, many of their functions have been taken over by small powerful personal computers, commonly known as PCs.
    主机的确很大，经常占据整个空调房，需要雇佣全职的工程师，并且只能跑特定编写的软件。即使这些大家伙还存在，但是大部分功能已经由更小更强的个人电脑跑了，它们被命名为“电脑”。

    In 1975, a primitive machine called the Altair, was launched in USA. It can properly be described as the first ‘home computer’ and it pointed the way to the future. This was followed, at the end of the 1970s, by a machine called Apple. In the early 1980s, the computer giant, IBM produced the world’s first Personal Computer. This ran on an ‘operation system’ called DOS, produced by a then small company named Microsoft.
    在1975年，美国推出了一台叫做“牛郎星”的原始机型。它被称作第一台“个人计算机”并指明了其未来的发展道路。紧接着在20世纪70年代末，有个跟随者叫做“苹果”。在20世纪80年代早期，计算机大厂，IBM生产了世界上第一台个人计算机。它上面运行了一个叫DOS的“操作系统”，是一个叫微软的小厂做的。
    PS: it pointed the way to the future, 它指明了未来的发展道路

    The IBM Personal Computer was widely copied. From those humble beginnings, we have seen the development of the user-friendly home computers and multimedia machines which are in common use today.
    于是IBM的机器就广泛传开了。虽然开始很微不足道，但是我们已经可以看到对用户越来越友好的家庭电脑在发展，多媒体机器的应用也越来越广泛。

    Considering how recent developments are, it is even more remarkable that as long ago as the 1960s, an Englishman, Leon Bagrit, was able to predict some of the uses of computers which we know today.
    想想这些发展的时间多么短，就知道英国人莱昂·巴格瑞特有多厉害了。他在60年代就能预言我们今天知道的计算机的一些用途。

    Bagrit dismissed the idea that computers would learn how to ‘think’ for themselves and would ‘rule the world’, which people liked to believe in those days. Bagrit foresaw a time when computers would be small enough to hold in the hand, when they would be capable of providing information about traffic jams and suggesting alternative routes, when they would be used in hospitals to help doctors to diagnose illnesses, when they would relieve office workers and accountants of dull, repetitive clerical work.
    巴格瑞特不觉得计算机会学着如何“自我思考”并统治世界，而这是其他人都愿意相信的。巴格瑞特预见到计算机可以小到可以拿到手上，它们可以提供塞车信息并建议可供选择的其他路线，它们可以被用在医院，帮助医生们诊断病情，它们可以减轻办公室打工人的压力，处理单调、重复的劳动。
    PS: be capable of, 可以、有能力
    PS++: relieve, 缓解、安慰，to one’s relief, 令某人欣慰的是

    All these computer uses have become commonplace. Of course, Leon Bagrit could not possibly have foreseen the developmet of the Internet, the worldside system that enables us to communicate instantly with anyone in any part of the world by using computers linked to telephone networks. Nor could he have foreseen how we could use the Internet to obtain information on every known subject, so we can read it on a screen in our homes and even print it as well if we want to. Computers have become smaller and smaller, more and more powerful and cheaper and cheaper. This is what makes Leon Bagrit’s predictions particularly remarkable. If he, or someone like him, were alive today he might be able to tell us what to expect in the next fifty years.
    计算机的这些功能都会变得很平常。当然了，莱昂·巴格瑞特也无法预见到互联网的发展—世界性的网络使得我们可以使用计算机连接电话网络，与世界上任何地方的人直接交流沟通。他也无法预测我们可以使用互联网获取到任何已知的信息，然后我们可以在自己家的电脑屏幕上阅读它们，如果愿意，甚至可以将其打印出来。计算机的体积越来越小，功能越来越强，价格越来越便宜。这也是莱昂·巴格瑞特的预测非凡的地方。如果他，或者像他一样的人今天还活着的话，他可能会告诉我们下一个50年会发生什么事情吧。