Материал: 1838

Replacement of the hard-to-implement decimal system (used in Charles Babbage's earlier design) by the simpler binary system meant that Zuse's machines were easier to build and potentially more reliable, given the technologies available at that time.

Purely electronic circuit elements soon replaced their mechanical and electromechanical equivalents, at the same time that digital calculation replaced analog. The engineer Tommy Flowers, working at the Post Office Research Station in London in the 1930s, began to explore the possible use of electronics for the telephone exchange. Experimental equipment that he built in 1934 went into operation 5 years later, converting a portion of the telephone exchange network into an electronic data processing system, using thousands of vacuum tubes.

In the US, John Vincent Atanasoff and Clifford E. Berry of Iowa State University developed and tested the Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC) in 1942, the first «automatic electronic digital computer». This design was also all-electronic and used about 300 vacuum tubes, with capacitors fixed in a mechanically rotating drum for memory.

Colossus was the first electronic digital programmable computing device, and was used to break German ciphers during World War II. During World War II, the British at Bletchley Park achieved a number of successes at breaking encrypted German military communications. The German encryption machine, Enigma, was first attacked with the help of the electro-mechanical bombes.

To crack the more sophisticated German Lorenz SZ 40/42 machine, used for highlevel Army communications, Max Newman and his colleagues commissioned Flowers to build the Colossus. He spent eleven months from early February 1943 designing and building the first Colossus. After a functional test in December 1943, Colossus was shipped to Bletchley Park, where it was delivered on 18 January 1944 and attacked its first message on 5 February.

Colossus was the world's first electronic digital programmable computer. It used a large number of valves (vacuum tubes). It had paper-tape input and was capable of being configured to perform a variety of boolean logical operations on its data.

Nine Mk II Colossi were built (The Mk I was converted to a Mk II making ten machines in total). Colossus Mark I contained 1500 thermionic valves (tubes), but Mark II with 2400 valves, was both 5 times faster and simpler to operate than Mark 1, greatly speeding the decoding process.

3. Continue the sentences:

1.These devices had …

2.Program code was …

3.It was quite similar to …

4.Replacement of …

5.Experimental equipment …

6.This design was …

7.To crack the …

8.After a functional test …

9.It used a large number of …

10.It had …

11.Colossus was …

4.Write the summary of the text in English.

5.Choose the right variants and fill in the gaps:

A) High power mainframe systems _________ processes such as modeling and predicting.

а) involve b) satisfy c) contain d) identify

B) The key purpose for using a visual aid is to help the audience understand the topic

_____ .

а) most b) better c) less d) more

C) Did the world's first electronic digital programmable computer use a large number of valves (vacuum tubes)? – _________________.

а) Yes, it has a great many parts. b) It was operated manually.

c)Yes, some mechanical devices use two hundred or more. d) Yes, it did.

D)As ________ became smaller and cheaper, the application of desktop PCs in business became more common.

The board urgently requires feedback on your experience with PCs in Northern Branch. I need to know for my report:

1.What do you personally use your PC for and your reasons for doing this?

2.What software do you use? Please, name the programs.

3.How many hours per day do you spend actually using it.

4.How has not your PC come up to your expectations?

5.What unanticipated uses have you found for your PC, that others may want to share?

Please FAX this information directly to me by 7 p.m. on Wednesday 7 December. Thank you for your help.

SECTION 2

1. Learn the words and word combinations:

2. Read and translate the text:

Today the computer has made locating, gathering, and analyzing data much faster and cost-effective. Even individual who owns a good computer and a modem can access databases and conduct in-depth intelligence searches that in the past only large corporations and libraries could afford.

Nowadays, using public and specialized online computer databases, one researcher can accomplish what formerly took the entire department far longer to accomplish. Some of the hardware required for efficient computerized searches includes a modem, fax machine, and high-speed printer. The faster the transmission mode, the more efficient your research is likely to be.

Many electronic network systems were created in 1989 and have continued to grow since then. They now offer access to information and the means to communicate with other individuals, businesses, or countries all over the world. A tremendous amount of pertinent information is available on what is termed the Internet. In fact, you do not even have to leave your computer to obtain information from the world famous libraries.

The Internet is a global computer network. It is developing very rapidly. You can read many publications (newspapers, magazines, journals) through the Internet. E- mail is the most popular service. A great many of people, who have access to the Internet, use the network only for sending and receiving E-mail messages.

In many countries, the Internet provides businesspersons a reliable alternative to

the more expensive and unreliable telecommunications systems. That is always cheaper, because you send E-mail messages; you only have to pay for phone calls to your local service providers, not for calls across your country or around the world. For these services, you pay your service provider a monthly or an hourly fee. Part of this fee goes towards its costs to connect to a larger provider; another part received by the larger service provider goes to cover its costs of running a worldwide network of wires and wireless stations.

Internet services combine the use of audio, video, graphics, and text for procuring information. If the topic of your paper is NAFTA, and you have narrowed this down to an update on the North American Trade Agreement, it is possible to gather material through an Internet service. When you enter this term, you might find dozens of sources. Therefore, you must make choices to narrow down your topic as you work.

However, the Internet is considered unreliable source of information. It is very important as you use the Internet to keep in mind the thesis of your research. Because it is so easy to gather information and nothing guarantees its quality and accuracy, the writer must not become distracted and must be the final judge of the facts obtained. Another problem is its insecurity. When you send an E-mail message to someone, it travels through many different networks and computers.

The information is constantly being directed towards its destination by special computers called routers. Therefore, it is possible to intervene into any of the computers along the route, read and even change the data being sent on the Internet. That is why you cannot send original contracts, letters of credit, invoices and other important documents through the Internet. However, these commercial and technical problems must be resolved in the nearest future.

Another popular Internet application is World-Wide Web. The number of Web pages is hundreds of millions. There is a searching system to find the proper Web page. Such a page contains a short description of a subject (program, institution, etc.) and the reference to other Web-documents. Availability of a home computer along with an on-line service could be very helpful. That involves installation and a monthly charge for the use of an on-line service. These charges are computed based on time duration; however, they are not computed according to the distance to your contacts. Therefore, the opportunities offered by having a home computer with online services may be cost-effective.

Electronic mail (E-mail) combines the advantage of writing with the responsiveness of the telephone. E-mail systems turn computers into inboxes. The ability to communicate with different libraries and countries has increased through linking to an electronic network such as Internet. E-mail is used widely for internal and external messages and suits itself particularly well to short informal messages.

Increasingly, organizations are adopting e-mail as the primary mode of internal communication. Some organizations have policies in place that treat e-mail as a business asset, not a personal asset; thus from a legal perspective, e-mail is admissible in court. All you need to get started in E-mail is access to a computer with the right hardware, the appropriate software, and an E-mail address.