V. Answer the questions to the text.

1. What are the simplest applications of computers? The scientists applied it to prediction of earthquakes and storms, controlling of satellites and controlling of atomic reactions

2. How will computers affect our lives in future? They will change our cases of using a lot of objects.

3. How have computers changed since the first one introduced in the early 1940s? Computers have brought about a tremendous revolution and are expected to open vast fields due to the dexterity of those who design software and develop application programs.

4. What devices can be considered to be peripherals? Like printer, scanner, faks

5. How much time do students spend playing computer games? 24 hour in day

6. Have computers greatly increased human potential? Why? Yeah, machines exchange people, and people can learn new skills

7. Who invented the first computer? Steve Jobs

8. How can modern scientists use computers in their research work? Use google to download research

VI. In the text find the words with similar meaning to the given ones.

VII. Complete the gaps in the sentences using the appropriate words from the previous exercise.

1. More genetic research will not alter the conditions in which people become __susceptible __ to many diseases.

2. If you have any technical __acumen __, it is likely you will soon have a home network of PCs, printers, answering machines.

3. None of the projects seem to argue the __merits __ of this approach.

4. Material _handling ___ equipment is used to increase output, control costs, and maximize productivity.

5. Human ___ingenuity _ has led to various technological developments through applied science.

VIII. Make collocations common to computer branch. Write the missing word.

1. to store ____;

2. to run ____;

3. word ____;

4. ____ application;

5. peripheral ____;

6. ____ processing;

7. silicon ____;

8. worldwide ____;

9. ____ banking;

10. integrated ____;

11. ____ code;

12. operating ____.

IX. Look through the text in Ex. III and complete the following sentences.

1. Computers could be linked together to …

2. Today computers are an inseparable part …

3. The first step towards the creation of computers was made…

4. Engineers apply computers …

5. User-friendly programs offer…

6. A computer can do very little …

7. A program is a set of instructions …

8. Computers today are hundred times…

9. Computer technology has opened a variety of opportunities for people …

X. Work in pairs. Read the text and tell your friend information according to the plan.

Student A – Text 1

Student B – Text 2

Invention (person, time, country)

Functions

Significance

Text 1

The first counting device – a mechanical “Calculating Clock” was invented by Wilhelm Schickard in 1624, but was forgotten for a time, so the man usually credited with inventing the first mechanical calculator is Blaise Pascal. Pascal, a French scientist and inventor, created a device in 1642 which, unlike the passive abacus, performed mathematical operations in an active manner. This calculator, called the ‘Pascaline’, could add and subtract numbers with up to eight digits, but was never used much because of its high cost and unreliability. German mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz studied the Pascaline, and by means of an innovative gear system added a third function: multiplication, which was performed as a sequence of additions. The first mechanical calculator that could perform the four basic arithmetic functions was built by Frenchman Charles Xavier Thomas of Colmar more than a century later. Colmar’s ‘Arithometer’ of 1820 was widely used until the beginning of the twentieth century.

Text 2

There are three machines which have claimed the title of being the first electronic computer ever. In 1941, J. V. Atanasoff, a professor at Iowa State University, and Clifford Berry, a graduate student, designed the first all-electronic computer using Boolean algebra. Although Atanasoff’s machine used such advanced technology as vacuum tubes, it was still more like an electronic calculator than a computer. The Colossus, a computer designed by Englishman Alan Turing in 1943 exclusively for breaking German code messages during World War II was a second machine claiming the title of the first computer. The third “first computer” was also originally created for military purposes: the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer), built by J. P. Eckert and J. V. Mauchly at the University of Pennsylvania, was used for calculating trajectory tables of newly developed weapons. However, the ENIAC was not completed until 1945. Shortly after the war it was used in developing the hydrogen bomb and later for weather prediction, etc. The ENIAC weighed some 80 tons and used about 1,800 square feet of floor space.

Date: 2016-03-03; view: 1287