2022年10月26日 VOA慢速英語：軟盤在回收服務中獲得第二次生命

 

Do you know the "save" icon on your computer? It is a picture of a floppy disk. Back in the 1900s, they were the main way computer files were saved and stored. Back then, there were no USB flash drives and there was no cloud-based storage.
你知道電腦上的“保存”圖標嗎？這是一張軟盤的圖片。早在 1900 年代，它們是保存和存儲計算機文件的主要方式。那時，沒有 USB 閃存驅(qū)動器，也沒有基于云的存儲。
 
Today, floppy disks are hard to find. And demand for them is rising.
今天，軟盤很難找到。對它們的需求正在上升。
 
Tom Persky runs the website floppydisk.com, a seller of the well-known palm-sized floppy disk. The 73-year-old says business is growing. The California-based business recycles new and used disks, removes the information stored on them and sells them to a dependable customer base. He estimates that he sells about 500 disks a day.
Tom Persky 經(jīng)營著 floppydisk.com 網(wǎng)站，該網(wǎng)站是著名的手掌大小軟盤的銷售商。這位 73 歲的老人說，業(yè)務正在增長。這家總部位于加利福尼亞的企業(yè)回收新的和用過的磁盤，刪除存儲在磁盤上的信息，然后將它們出售給可靠的客戶群。他估計他每天銷售大約 500 張磁盤。
 
So, who buys floppy disks in the year 2022? Persky says there are many kinds of people who make such purchases. They include people who work in the embroidery industry and in the airline industry.
那么，誰在 2022 年購買軟盤？Persky 說有很多種人會進行此類購買。他們包括在刺繡業(yè)和航空業(yè)工作的人。
 
"If you built a plane 20 or 30 or even 40 years ago, you would use a floppy disk to get information in and out of some of the avionics of that airplane," Persky said.
“如果你在 20 或 30 甚至 40 年前建造了一架飛機，你會使用軟盤來獲取進出該飛機某些航空電子設備的信息，”Persky 說。
 
At his warehouse, there are huge numbers of colorful disks - bright green, orange, yellow – sent from around the world. He uses a large magnetic machine with a conveyor belt to remove the information from the disks, and then another machine puts written information on them.
在他的倉庫里，有大量來自世界各地的彩色圓盤——亮綠色、橙色、黃色。他使用帶有傳送帶的大型磁力 機器從磁盤中取出信息，然后另一臺機器將寫入的信息放在磁盤上。
 
His warehouse even has older versions of floppy disks that were used in the 1970s and 1980s. One even is labeled with the 1960 John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon U.S. presidential debate.
他的倉庫甚至還有 1970 年代和 1980 年代使用的舊版軟盤。其中一個甚至被貼上了 1960 年約翰·F·肯尼迪和理查德·尼克松美國總統(tǒng)辯論的標簽。
 
Despite being "the dinosaurs" of the tech world, Persky said floppy disks still have some good qualities.
盡管是科技界的“恐龍”，Persky 說軟盤仍然具有一些優(yōu)良品質(zhì)。
 
"Floppy disks are very reliable, very stable, a very well understood way to get information in and out of a machine," he said.
“軟盤非?？煽?、非常穩(wěn)定，是一種非常容易理解的將信息輸入和輸出機器的方式，”他說。
 
Persky went into the floppy disk business after working for a tax company in the 1990s doing software development. He used to make copies of the software on floppy disks. After that, he said that he fell in love with the floppy disk business.
Persky 在 1990 年代為一家稅務公司工作后從事軟盤業(yè)務，從事軟件開發(fā)。他過去常常在軟盤上制作軟件副本。之后，他說他愛上了軟盤生意。
 
He was not expecting his business to last as long as it did.
他沒想到他的生意能持續(xù)這么久。
 
"When I see the 'save' icon, I see a floppy disk. But most people just see the 'save' icon," Persky said. "I'll be here for as long as people continue to want to have these disks. But it's not forever."
“當我看到‘保存’圖標時，我看到的是一張軟盤。但大多數(shù)人只看到了‘保存’圖標，”Persky 說。“只要人們繼續(xù)想要擁有這些磁盤，我就會一直在這里。但這不是永遠的。”