双语畅销书《艾伦图灵传》第8章:水银延时线(23)
This original perception flowed from the very universality of the machine, which might be used for any kind of 'definite method', not necessarily arithmetical.
That being so, the pulses '1101' stored in a delay line, might well not refer in any way to the number 'thirteen', but might represent a chess move or a piece of cipher.
存储在延迟线上的脉冲"1101"，不一定是代表十进制数"13"，还有可能代表棋子的一步着法，或者代表一个密码。Or, even if the machine were engaged upon arithmetic, the '1101' might be representing not 'thirteen',
即使这个机器确实是在进行算术，"1101"也不一定代表"13"，
but indicating perhaps a possible error of thirteen units, or a thirteen in the floating-point representation of numbers, or something else altogether, at the choice of the user of the machine.
它还有可能代表13个单位的误差，或者是浮点数中的13注，或者别的什么东西，这完全取决于机器操作者的选择。As he saw it from the start, there would be far more to adding and multiplying than putting pulses through the hardware adder and multiplier.
正如图灵一开始的想法，加法或乘法，并不只是让脉冲简单地通过加法器或乘法器，The pulses would have to be organised, interpreted, chopped up, and put together again, according to the particular way in which they were being used.
而是要对脉冲进行组织、变换、分解，然后根据它们的意义进行重组。He dwelt in particular upon the question of doing arithmetic in floating-point form, and showed how the mere addition of two floating-point numbers required a whole instruction table.
他特别地阐述了浮点形式的算术，并演示了仅仅将两个浮点数相加所需的整个指令表。He wrote some tables of this kind.
图灵事先写好了一些指令表，MULTIP, for instance, would have the effect of multiplying two numbers which had been encoded and stored in floating-point form, encoding and storing the result.
比如MULTIP，它的作用是使两个浮点数相乘，并对结果进行编码和存储。His tables made use of the 'very powerful' feature of the machine, for he had it assemble bits of the necessary instructions for itself, and then execute them.
这张表充分利用了这种机器的强大特性，因为他让机器本身内置了一些必要的指令，并且执行它们。
