原文链接：https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20050512-48/?p=35653
Today I’m going to tell a story from 1996. Why? Because I can.
这回我要讲一个1996年的故事。为什么呢？因为我想这么做。
One of the tests performed by Windows Hardware Quality Labs (WHQL) was the NCT packet stress test which had the nickname “Hell”. The purpose of the test was to flood a network card with an insane number of packets, in order to see how it handled extreme conditions. It uncovered packet-dropping bugs, timing problems, all sorts of great stuff. Network card vendors used it to determine what size internal hardware buffers should be in order to cover “all reasonable network traffic scenarios”.
Windows硬件设备质量实验室（WHQL）日常进行的其中一项测试是NCT数据包压力测试（译注：没有找到NCT具体指什么，哪位朋友了解请赐教），而这项测试被冠了个昵称叫『地狱』（Hell）。这项测试的目的是让一块网卡去处理数量多到疯狂的数据包，以验证其在极限条件下的表现，而这项测试可以揭露出这块网卡的掉包bug、时序问题等各种各样的毛病。网卡供应商通过这项测试的结果来判定他们的产品硬件缓冲区的大小，以便应对『所有合乎常理的网络流量场景』。
It so happened that at the time this test had currency (1996 era), the traffic on the Microsoft corporate network was approximately 1.7 times worse than the NCT packet stress test. A card could pass the Hell test with flying colors, yet drop 90% of its packets when installed on a computer at Microsoft because the card simply couldn’t keep up with the traffic.
巧合的是，当年这项测试还具备价值时（1996年那时候），运行在微软的企业网络上的流量实际上大约是NCT数据包压力测试的1.7倍之多。某块网卡可能能在『Hell』测试中获得漂亮的分数，但将其安装在微软内部的机器上的时候仍然会有90%的丢包率，仅仅是因为这块网卡实在承受不住那么大的流量。
The open secret among network card vendors was, “If you want your card to work with Windows, submit one card to WHQL and send another to a developer on the Windows team.”
网卡供应商之间的一个公开的秘密是：『如果你想让自己的产品能在 Windows 上运行，那就在向 WHQL 提交样品的同时也给 Windows 开发组的工程师也送一块。』
(This rule applied to hardware other than network cards. I was “gifted” a sound card from a major manufacturer and installed it on my main machine. It wasn’t long before I found and fixed a crashing bug in their driver.)
（这条规矩在网卡之外的硬件上也适用。我就曾经被『赠予』了一块某大厂的声卡，于是就将其装在了我的机器上。没过多久，我就发现并修复了这块声卡的驱动里一个会导致崩溃的bug。）
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