Using portable calculators

- Computers are finding application in new fields of science, industry and engineering, aren’t they?

- Yes, you are quite right, they are coming in our everyday life. A single chip can stand for a whole computer since it contains the processor, RAM, ROM, clock and I/O control unit. It is used for myriads of applications from automobiles to toys.

- How do students use electronic calculators?

- Thanks to the fact that these devices tend to be just a little larger than а package of average size cigarettes, the pocket calculators allow the students to solve different mathematical problems without going to a computing laboratory.

- What operations can such calculators perform?

- They can perform four basic mathematical operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division as well as raising to the power and square rooting.

- How can the results be seen?

- The meter control device displays the answers on an indicator scale in a flash as soon as the button is pressed. Such calculators can work either from standard electrical circuit or from an elec­tric battery. Students use these calculators to solve problems of their research works and diploma projects.

2.11 Give English equivalents to the Russian phrases from the dialogue above:находить применение; повседневная жизнь; в области науки, техники и промышленности; карманный калькулятор; среднего размера пачка сигарет; немного больше; решать задачи; могут выполнять; позволяют студентам; не заходя; такие калькуляторы; нажата кнопка; также как и; четыре основные математические действия; сложение, вычитание, деление, умножение; возведение в степень, извлечение квадратного корня; на дисплее; показывает; счетно-контрольный аппарат; мгновенно; как только; могут работать либо …, либо …; обычная электросеть; батарейка; научная работа; дипломный проект.

Word power

Nouns: ancestor предок, прародитель; axe топор; cloth ткань, материя; descendant потомок; fossil окаменелость, ископаемое; hammer молоток, молот; loom ткацкий станок; pattern образец; preci­sion точность; аккуратность, пунктуальность; screwdriver отвёртка; tool инструмент, орудие; virtue добродетель; достоинство, преимущество Verbs: to inherit наследовать, получать наследство; to preserve сохранять; to distort искажать, извращать; to consist of состоять; to trace back набрасывать, чертить; to contribute to жертвовать, сообщать, содейстовать; to persist упорствовать; to weave сплетать; to improve улучшать; to slide скользить. Adjectives: outstanding выдающийся; unreliable ненадёжный, недостоверный; insufficient недостаточный, ограниченный, неполный; decorative декоративный.

Word combinations: get along with уживаться; rather than скорее, чем; no one other than he никто кроме него; manual dexterity проворство, сноровка, ловкость рук; to come into widespread use стать широко употребляемым.

Guess the meaning: other than the parts of our own bodies; just as much as; human beings; our ape-like ancestors; in a tool-using society, count for more than brute strength; the clever rather than the strong inherited the earth; the tools of communication; are designed to serve; only quite recently, for the most part; as well; to aid our minds; in any way; the reverse is closer to the truth.

Text 2B Prehistory

Read the text with a dictionary & make a list of key words.

(1) Tools are any objects other than the parts of our own bodies that we use to help us do our work. Technology is nothing more than the use of tools. When you use a screwdriver, a hammer, or an axe, you are using technology just as much as when you use an auto­mobile, a television set, or a computer.

(2) We tend to think of technology as a human invention. But the reverse is closer to the truth. Stone tools found along with fossils show that our ape-like ancestors were already putting technology to use. Anthropologists speculate that using tools may have helped these creatures evolve into human beings; in a tool-using society, manual dexterity and intelligence count for more than brute strength. The clever rather than the strong inherited the earth.

(3) Most of the tools we have invented have aided our bodies rather than our minds. These tools help us lift and move and cut and shape. Only quite recently, for the most part, have we developed tools to aid our minds as well.

(4) The tools of communication, from pencil and paper to television, are designed to serve our minds. These devices transmit information or preserve it, but they do not modify it in any way (If the information is modified, this is considered a defect rather than a virtue, as when a defective radio distorts the music we're trying to hear.)

(5) Our interest lies with machines that classify and modify informa­tion rather than merely transmitting it or preserving it. The ma­chines that do this are the computers and the calculators, the so-called mind tools. The widespread use of machines for information processing is a modern development. But simple examples of infor­mation-processing machines can be traced back to ancient times. The following are some of the more important forerunners of the computer.

(6) The Abacus The abacus is the counting frame that was the most widely used device for doing arithmetic in ancient times and whose use persisted into modern times in the Orient. Early versions of the abacus consisted of a board with grooves in which pebbles could slide. The Latin word for pebble is calculus, from which we get the words abacus and calculate.

(7) Mechanical Calculators In the seventeenth century, calculators more sophisticated than the abacus began to appear. Although a number of people contributed to their development, Blaise Pascal (French mathematician and philosopher) and Wilhelm von Leib­niz (German mathematician, philosopher, and diplomat) usually are singled out as pioneers. The calculators Pascal and Leibniz built were unreliable, since the mechanical technology of the time was not capable of manufacturing the parts with sufficient precision. As manufacturing techniques improved, mechanical calculators even­tually were perfected; they were used widely until they were re­placed by electronic calculators in recent times.

(8) The Jacquard Loom Until modern times, most information-pro­cessing machines were designed to do arithmetic. An outstanding exception, however, was Jacquard's automated loom, a machine de­signed not for hard figures but beautiful patterns. A Jacquard loom weaves cloth containing a decorative pattern; the woven pattern is controlled by punched cards. Changing the punched cards changes the pattern the loom weaves. Jacquard looms came into widespread use in the early nineteenth century, and their descendants are still used today. The Jacquard loom is the ancestor not only of modem auto­mated machine tools but of the player piano as well.