TONT 38343 二十英尺长的电脑

原文链接：https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20040726-00/?p=38343

Back in the days of Windows 95, when Plug and Play was in its infancy, one of the things the Plug and Play team did was push the PCI specification to an absurd extreme.

回到 Windows 95 那时候，当即插即用（译注：链接已失效，指向页面为微软网站上介绍即插即用机制的页面，Web Archive 链接点击此处）年纪还小的时候，即插即用功能的研发组做了一件将 PCI 规范推向极致的事情。

They took a computer and put it at one end of a hallway. They then built a chain of PCI bridge cards that ran down the hallway, and at the end of the chain, plugged in a video card.

他们搬来一台电脑，将其置于走廊的一头，然后用一大溜 PCI 桥接卡从走廊的一头一直串联到另一头，最后在这个桥接卡链的末端插上了一张显卡。

And then they turned it on.

然后他们将电脑启动了起来。

Amazingly, it actually worked. The machine booted and used a video card twenty feet away. (I’m guessing at the distance. It was a long time ago.) It took two people to operate this computer, one to move the mouse and type, and another to watch the monitor at the other end and report where the pointer was and what was happening on the screen.

令人惊讶的是这事还真成了。机器启动了起来，并调用了20英尺（译注：约6米以上）外的那块显卡。（距离我是用猜的，这已经是很久以前的事情了。）操作这台电脑需要两个人，一个人（在一头）移动鼠标、敲打键盘，另一个人在另一头盯着显示器，汇报鼠标箭头在什么地方、以及屏幕上显示的内容。

And the latency was insane.

至于延迟，已经达到了难以言喻的地步。

But it did work and thereby validated the original design.

不过说到底是能正常工作的，也由此证实了设计是有效的。

Other Plug and Play trivia: The phrase “Plug and Play” had already been trademarked at the time, and Microsoft had to obtain the rights to the phrase from the original owners.

另一则关于即插即用的琐事：『即插即用』这个短语当时已经是商标了，所以微软不得不从其持有人那里获取使用权。