Part 3. INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES OF THE 21ST CENTURY

Text 1

Lead-in

1. Check the transcription in the dictionary and read the words listed

below:

Nouns

mathematics, gear, technology, calculate, data, circuit, variety

Verbs

create, manufacture, achieve, credit, punch

Adjectives

commercial, scientific, successful, mechanical, tedious, computational, worldwide, crude

2. Answer the questions:

1. What do you know about the first computers?

2. What was the first computers?

3. Read the text:

Brief history of the computer industry

In 1822 Charles Babbage, professor of mathematics at Cambridge University in England, created the “Analytical engine”, a mechanical calculator that could perform a wide range of computational tasks. The model has never been completed as revolving shafts and gears could not be manufactured with the crude industrial technology of the day.

By the 1880s manufacturing technology had improved to the point that practical mechanical calculators, including versions of Babbage's Analytical engine, could be produced. The new technology achieved worldwide fame in tabulating the US Census of 1890. The Census Bureau turned to a new tabulating machine invented by Herman Hollerith, which reduced personal data to holes punched in paper cards.

Tiny mechanical fingers "felt" the holes and closed an electrical circuit that in turn advanced the mechanical counter. Hollerith's invention eventually became the foundation on which the International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) was built.

Analog and digital calculators with electromechanical components appeared in a variety of military and intelligence applications in 1930s. Many people credit the invention of the first electronic computer to John Vincent Atanasoff. He produced working models of computer memory and data processing units at the University of Iowa in 1939 although had never assembled a complete working computer.

World War II prompted the development of the first working all-electronic digital computer, Colossus, which the British secret service designed to crack Nazi

codes. Similarly, the need to calculate detailed mathematical tables to help aim cannons and missiles led to the creation of the first, general-purpose computer, the electronic numerical integrator and calculator ENIAC at the University of Pennsylvania in 1946.

After leaving their university (arguing over the patent rights) developers of ENIAC, J. Prosper Eckert and John Mauchly, turned to business pursuits. They also had an ugly scandal with an academic colleague, John von Neumann, whom they accused of having unfairly left their names off the scientific paper that first described the computer and allowed von Neumann to claim that he had invented it. Eckert and Mauchly went on to create UNIVAC for the Remington Rand Corporation, an early leader in the computer industry. UNIVAC was the first successful commercial computer, and the first model was sold to the US Census Bureau in 1951.

Tasks:

1. Answer the questions:

1. What is the «Analytical engine»?

2. What was Charles Babbage remarkable for?

3. What was the second stage of technology development?

4. Who was Herman Hollerrith contribution into computer science?

5. What did John Vincent Atanasoff invent?

6. How did computer use during World War II?

7. How did UNIVAC appear?

2. Read the given collocations and find the Russian equivalents:

error-prone task, large-scale model, crude technology of the day, electrical circuit, credit the invention, data processing unit, general-purpose computer

несовершенная технология того времени, компьютер общего назначения, задание с ошибками, электрическая цепь, широкомасштабная модель, приписывать изобретение, устройство для обработки данных.

3. Choose the correct word to complete the sentences according the information in the text.

1. The … has never been completed.

a) model;

b) experiment;

c) frame.

2. The new technology … worldwide fame in tabulating the US Census of 1890.

a) reached;

b) achieved;

c) took.

3. Many people credit the … of the first electronic computer to John Vincent Atanasoft.

a) fame;

b) task;

c) invention.

4. Eckert and Mauchly went on … UNIVAC.

a) carry out;

b) to create;

c) to sell.

5. Match the synonyms.

Verbs

1. produce a) discover

2. invent b) shorten

3. include c) manufacture

4. reduce d) prescribe

5. credit e) assemble

f) involve

Nouns

1. engine a) base

2. foundation b) mechanism

3. counter c) industry

4. use d) co-worker

5. colleague e) application

f) calculator

g) patent

Date: 2015-01-29; view: 1426