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It was one that produced truly random digits from noise, as opposed to something like a cipher key generator that would produce apparently random but actually determined digits. (That, if he wanted it, he would surely program for himself.)
这个发生器可以根据噪声，产生真正的随机数，而不是像密钥产生器那样，看起来随机，实际上却是确定的数。（如果图灵想要后者，他完全可以自己做一个。）
Perhaps he based his design on the circuit that produced the Rockex key-tapes at Hanslope.
也许他的设计是基于汉斯洛普的为劳凯克斯机生产密钥的电路。
Geoff Tootill was interested in Alan's ideas, but some of them were particularly impractical in view of the limited time and effort available.
托蒂尔对图灵的想法很感兴趣，但其中一些想法，从时间和资源的角度来看，是非常不现实的。
There was, for instance, a scheme he devised for computer character recognition, which would involve an elaborate system with a television camera in order to transfer a visual image to the cathode ray tube store, and reduce it to a standard size.
比如说，图灵为计算机设计了一个符号识别系统，这个设计非常复杂，包括一个摄像机，用来把视觉图像转换成阴极射线管的信号，并把它缩放至标准大小。
Geoff Tootill was probably the most tolerant of such dreams, but to him as to all on the engineering side, Alan Turing was the brilliant mathematician (or so they heard) but embarrassingly half-baked engineer.
托蒂尔也许是最能接受这类梦想的人，但是对他来说，图灵虽然是最卓越的数学家（至少听说是如此），但在工程方面却是个半吊子。
The year 1949 meant the end of his groping efforts to be the academic engineer.
在这一年，图灵试图成为专业工程师的努力，彻底以失败告终了。
Meanwhile the more theoretical side of computer development had become a more public question.
与此同时，计算机的理论方面的发展，成了更加一般化的问题。
In 1948 Norbert Wiener had published a book called Cybernetics, defining this word to mean 'Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine'.
1948年，诺伯特·维纳出版了一本书，名为《控制论》，他给这个词的定义是"关于在动物和机器中进行控制和通信的科学"。
It meant the description of the world in which information and logic, rather than energy or material constitution, was what mattered.
这是在信息和逻辑的层面上描述世界，而不是能量或物质，
As such it was heavily influenced by the massive wartime technological developments, although the basic ideas, such as feedback, were hardly new.
这受到了战时技术发展的深重影响，尽管其基本思想，比如反馈，并不是新的想法。
Wiener and von Neumann had led a conference in the winter of 1943–4 on 'cybernetic' ideas, but Wiener's book marked the opening up of the subject outside the narrow domain of technical papers.
早在1943年冬天，维纳和冯·诺伊曼就召开过一场会议，讨论控制论，但是维纳的这本书，才正式地标志着这个课题的诞生。
In fact Cybernetics was still very technical, incoherent, and almost unreadable, but the public seized upon it as a magic key which would unlock the secrets of what had happened to the world in the past decade.
《控制论》这本书非常艰深晦涩，几乎无法读懂，但是人们仍像握着魔法钥匙一样握着它，似乎这把钥匙能够解开过去十年间发生的秘密。
