Reading

3. Read the text and match the sentences (A-C) to the numbered spaces (1-3) in the text:

A. Computers penetrate almost into all spheres of our modern society, from nuclear energy production and missile design to the processing of bank checks, weather forecasting, manufacturing, research and medical diagnoses.

B. If Babbage had been able to get enough money to build the computer, the analytical engine would have been as big as a locomotive.

C. But the educated man of today needs to have some significant knowledge of science and a little significant knowledge about computers.

From the History of Computer

The educated man of 200 years ago did not need to know anything about science. The educated man of 25 - 30 years ago did not need to know anything about computers.

The computer is no doubt the most amazing achievement of mankind. It is a data storage system created by man. A human tells the machine what to do, when to do it and how it should be done.

The word computer comes from a Latin word which means to count. Nearly one hundred and fifty years ago there were no such things as computers. Knotted ropes, marks in clay, the abacus are all methods of keeping track of numbers.

In 1833 an English inventor and mathematician Charles Babbage, professor of Cambridge University designed the first computer. But he never built it.

During the 70 years following Babbage's death in 1871, computer scientists improved on Babbage's original idea. In 1939, Harvard University physicist Howard Aiken built the forerunner of today's computer. It used thousands of electrical switches that clicked on and off to compute data. It was much slower than later computers, which used electronic components instead of switches. In continental Europe the first electronic digital computer MACM was constructed in 1950 by Ukrainian Academician S.O. Lebedev.

Invention of electronic computers is one of the greatest achievements of mankind. The significance of it can be compared with the invention of the steam-engine and the utilization of atomic energy.

You can use a computer to write a letter, design a house, draw a picture or exchange messages with someone around the world.

Computer technology is a rapidly growing industry. According to the technical experts it is very educational. They say that computers help children to learn much more quickly. But young people's true passion is videogames. Some experts are alarmed. In their opinion, computers block the imagination and spontaneity of young people. And there are a lot of videogames which are violent and not educational.

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