Choose the proper term for each definition.

1. An ancient instrument for caclulations is …

a) a chip; b) an abacus; c) Analytical Engine;

2. A closed glass electron tube with no air in it, used for controlling a flow of electricity as in radio or TV is …

a) a transistor; b) a vacuum tube; c) a cathode ray tube.

3. A computer that can simulate different measurements by electronic means and continuously works out calculations is…

a) a digital computer; b) an analogue computer) c) a calculator.

4. A small semiconductor which operates as an amplifier is…

a) a chip; b) a transistor; c) a vacuum tube.

5. Making things on a very small scale is …

a) microminiaturization; b) multiprogramming; c) representation.

3.2 Choose the proper definition for the term, & translate them.

a chip to count logarithm tables a digital computer a slide rule

is are mean(s)

a) to say the numerals in order to any point; b) an instrument used for calculation; c) a machine in which information is represented by one of two electric states: on or off; d) a square or rectangular piece of silicon upon which several layers of an integrated circuit are etched. e) those which show the exponent of the power to which a fixed number must be raised to produce a given number.

3.3 express the the main idea of Text 3A using the following.

1. The Analytical Engine of Charles Babbage was the first computer but he never finished this work. 2. An American, named Vannevar Bush built the first analog computer in 1930. 3. Computers have gone through many changes, and now we have fourth-generation computers. 4. The first real calculating machine appeared in 1820.

3.4 Find synonyms for the following words in Text 3A.

simple / to carry out / up-to-date / quick / to try / small.

3.5 Find antonyms for the following words:

like / short / to increase / dependently / approximately / tiny / dependable / before / single / many / usually / faster / to complete / wrong / multiplying / real / to appear / exactly / to save / to reduce / except / necessary / building.

3.6 Fill in the gaps with: unlike / in / inside / into / on / from / out / to / during / for / of / by / without / with / at / instead of / per / about / onto / than / or / as… as / upon / after

1. Аn abacus is a bead frame in which the beads are moved … left … right. 2. Calculus, another branch … mathematics, was independently invented... both Sir Isaac Newton and Leibnitz. 3. The first real calculating machine appeared... 1820 as the result... several people's experiments. 4. A chip is a square or rectangular piece … silicon. 5. People went … using some form … abacus well … the 16th centure, and it is still being used … some parts of the world because it can be understood … knowing how to read. 6. … the 17th and 18th centuries many people tried to find easy ways … calculating. 7. This type … machine, which saves a great deal … time and reduces the possibility … making mistakes, depends … a series of ten-toothed gear wheels. 8. Babbage showed this machine … the Paris Exhibition in 1855, was an attempt to cut … the human being altogether, except for providing the machine … the necessary facts … the problem to be solved. 9. The first analog computer was built … American named Vannevar Bush; it was used … Word War II to help aim guns. 10. Mark I, the name given … the first digital computer, was completed in 1944. 11. This was the first machine that could figure … long lists of mathematical problems all … a very fast rate. 12. The men responsible … this invention were Professor Howard Aiken and some people … IBM. 13. … 1947 John von Newmann developed the idea of keeping instructions … the computer … the computer's memory. 14. UNIVAC I is an example … these computers which could perform thousand … calculations … second. 15. The reason … this extra speed was the use … transistors … … vacuum tubes. 16. The third-generation computers appeared … the market …1965. 17. … second-generation computers, these are controlled … tiny integrated circuits and are consequently smaller and more dependable. 18. the integrated circuits … the fourth-generation computers that are being developed have been greatly reduced … size. 19. This is due … microminiaturization, which means that the circuits are much smaller … before; … many … 1000 tiny circuits now fit … a single chip. 20. A chip is a square … rectangular piece of silicon, usually … 1/10 … 1/4 inch, … which several layers … an integrated circuit are etched … imprinted, … which the circuit is encapsulated … plastic … metal.

 

Dialogue 3.7 Fill in the gaps with suitable questions.

a look at the prehistory of the computers

- …?

- This, in fact, is why today we still count in tens and multiples of tens. The very first calculating device used was the ten fingers of a man's hands.

- …?

- Then the abacus was invented, a bead frame in which the beads are moved from left to right. People went on using some form of abacus well into the 16th century, and it is still being used in some parts of the world because it can be understood without knowing how to read.

- …?

- During the 17th and 18th centuries there were several attempts: J.Napier, a Scotsman, devised a mechanical way of multiplying and dividing, which is how the modern slide rule works. Henry Briggs used Napier's ideas to produce logarithm tables, which all mathematicians use today.

- …?

- Calculus, another branch of mathematics, was independently invented by both Sir Isaac Newton, an Englishman, and Leibnitz, a German mathematician.

- …?

- The first real calculating machine appeared in 1820 as the result of several people's experiments. This type of machine, which saves a great deal of time and reduces the possibility of making mistakes, depends on a series of ten-toothed gear wheels.

To answer the questions below read Text 3B underneath.

1. When was a machine like the one Babbage conceived actually built? 2. Who was the author of it? What was its name? 3. Was there anything in common between Bab­bage's Analytical Engine and Aiken’s Harvard Mark I? Prove it, please. 4. What was the latter driven by? 5. Why was the Mark I obsolete scarcely finished? What was the machine that rendered the electromechanical computers obso­lete? 6. What machine was needed at that time? 7. What is the first electronic computer’s name? 8. What would the speed of operation be limited by in ENIAC? 9. Name the designers of ENIAC.

10. Why was ENIAC better than the best electromechanical computer? 11. What kind of machines would all computers be after ENIAC? 12. What were the two distinguishing features of EDVAC? 13. What stand for ENIAC & EDVAC? 14. What is a von Neumann machine? 15. Describe the technological features characteristic of each computer generation. 16. What type of computer memory was once so widely used that its name became almost synonymous with "high-speed memory"? 17. What technological developments made (a) minicomputers and (b) microcomputers possible?

 

Text 3B Babbage's Dream Comes True

(1) The Harvard Mark I A hundred years passed before a machine like the one Babbage conceived was actually built. This occurred in 1944, when Howard Aiken of Harvard University completed the Harvard Mark I Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator.

(2) Aiken was not familiar with the Analytical Engine when he de­signed the Mark I. Later, after people had pointed out Babbage's work to him, he was amazed to learn how many of his ideas Bab­bage had anticipated.

(3) The Mark I is the closest thing to the Analytical Engine that has ever been built or ever will be. It was controlled by a punched paper tape, which played the same role as Babbage's punched cards. Like the Analytical Engine, it was basically mechanical. How­ever, it was driven by electricity instead of steam. Electricity also served to transmit information from one part of the machine to another, replacing the complex mechanical linkages that Babbage had proposed. Using electricity (which had only been a laboratory curiosity in Babbage's time) made the difference between success, and failure.

(4) But, along with several other electromechanical computers built at about the same time, the Mark I was scarcely finished before it was obsolete. The electromechanical machines simply were not fast enough. Their speed was seriously limited by the time required for mechanical parts to move from one position to another. For in­stance, the Mark I took six seconds for a multiplication and twelve for a division; this was only five or six times faster than what a human with an old desk calculator could do.

(5 ) ENIAC What was needed was a machine whose computing, con­trol, and memory elements were completely electrical. Then the speed of operation would be limited not by the speed of mechani­cal moving parts but by the much greater speed of moving elec­trons.

(6) In the late 1930s, John V. Atanasoff of Iowa State College demon­strated the elements of an electronic computer. Though his work did not become widely known, it did influence the thinking of John W. Mauchly, one of the designers of ENIAC.

(7) ENIAC — Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer — was the machine that rendered the electromechanical computers obso­lete. ENIAC used vacuum tubes for computing and memory. For control, it used an electrical plug board, like a telephone switch-board. The connections on the plug board specified the sequence of operations ENIAC would carry out.

(8) ENIAC was 500 times as fast as the best electromechanical computer. A problem that took one minute to solve on ENIAC would require eight to ten hours on an electromechanical machine. After ENIAC, all computers would be electronic.

(9)ENIAC was the first of many computers with acronyms for names. The same tradition gave us EDVAC, UNIVAC, JOHNIAC, ILLIAC, and even MANIAC.

(10)EDVACThe Electronic Discrete Variable Computer — EDVAC— was constructed at about the same time as ENIAC. But EDVAC, influenced by the ideas of the brilliant Hungarian-American mathematician John von Neumann, was by far the more advanced of the two machines. Two innovations that first appeared in EDVAC have been incorporated in almost every computer since.

(11) First, EDVAC used binary notation to represent numbers inside the machine. Binary notation is a system for writing numbers that uses only two digits (0 and 1), instead of the ten digits (0-9) used in the conventional decimal notation. Binary notation is now recognized as the simplest way of representing numbers in an elec­tronic machine.

(12) Second, EDVAC's program was stored in the machine's memory, just like the data. Previous computers had stored the program exter­nally on punched tapes or plug boards. Since the programs were stored the same way the dataware, one program could manipulate another program as if it were data. We will see that such program-manipulating programs play a crucial role in modern computer systems.

(13) A stored-program computer — one whose program is stored in memory in the same form as its data — is usually called a van Neumann machine in honor of the originator of the stored-pro­gram concept.

(14) From the 1940s to the present, the technology used to build computers has gone through several revolutions. People sometimes speak of different generations of computers, with each generation using a different technology.

(15) The First GenerationFirst-generation computers prevailed in the 1940s and for much of the 1950s. They used vacuum tubes for calculation, control, and sometimes for memory as well. First-generation machines used several other ingenious devices for memory. In one, for instance, information was stored as sound waves circulating in a column of mercury. Since all these first-generation memories are now obsolete, no further mention will be made of them.

(16) Vacuum tubes are bulky, unreliable, energy consuming, and gen­erate large amounts of heat. As long as computers were tied down to vacuum tube technology, they could only be bulky, cumbersome, and expensive.

(17) The Second Generation In the late 1950s, the transistor became available to replace the vacuum tube. A transistor, which is only slightly larger than a kernel of corn, generates little heat and enjoys long life.

(18) At about the same time, the magnetic-core memory was introduced. This consisted of a latticework of wires on which were strung tiny, doughnut-shaped beads called cores. Electric currents flowing in the wires stored information by magnetizing the cores. Information could be stored in core memory or retrieved from it in about a millionth of a second.

(19) Core memory dominated the high-speed memory scene for much of the second and third generations. To programmers during this period, core and high-speed memory were synonymous.

(20) The Third Generation The early 1960s saw the introduction of integrated circuits, which incorporated hundreds of transistors on a single silicon chip. The chip itself was small enough to fit on the end of your finger; after being mounted in a protective package, it still would fit in the palm of your hand. With integrated circuits, computers could be made even smaller, less expensive, and more reliable.

(21) Integrated circuits made possible minicomputers, tabletop computers small enough and inexpensive enough to find a place in the classroom and the scientific laboratory.

(22) In the late 1960s, integrated circuits began to be used for high-speed memory, providing some competition for magnetic-core memory. The trend toward integrated-circuit memory has contin­ued until today, when it has largely replaced magnetic-core memory.

(23) The most recent jump in computer technology came with the introduction of large-scale integrated circuits, often referred to simply as chips. Whereas the older integrated circuits contained hundred of transistors, the new ones contain thousands or tens of thousands.

(24) It is the large-scale integrated circuits that make possible the mi­croprocessors and microcomputers. They also make possible com­pact, inexpensive, high-speed, high-capacity integrated-circuit memory.

(25) All these recent developments have resulted in a microprocessor revolution, which began in the middle 1970s and for which there is no end in sight.

(26) The Fourth Generation In addition to the common applications of digital watches, pocket calculators, and personal computers, you can find microprocessors — the general-purpose processor-on-a-chip — in virtually every machine in the home or business — microwave ovens, cars, copy machines, TV sets, and so on. Com­puters today are hundred times smaller than those of the first gene­ration, and a single chip is far more powerful than ENIAC.

(27) The Fifth Generation The term was coined by the Japanese to describe the powerful, intelligent computers they wanted to build by the mid-1990s. Since then it has become an umbrella term, encompassing many research fields in the computer industry. Key areas of ongoing research are artificial intelligence (AI), expert systems, and natural language.