I. Read and translate the following text. Give a brief history of computers development. Present it in written form. Answer the questions below the text.

The first hackers (continue)

Until the late 1970s, the computer was viewed as a massive machine that was useful to big business and big government but not to the general public. Computers were too cumbersome and expensive for private use, and most people were intimidated by them. As technology advanced, this was changed by a distinctive group of engineers and entrepreneurs who rushed to improve the designs of then current technology and to find ways to make the computer attractive to more people. Although these innovations of computer technology were very different from each other, they had common enthusiasm for technical innovation and the capacity to foresee the potential of computers. This was a very competitive and stressful time, and the only people who succeeded were the ones who were able to combine extraordinary engineering expertise with progressive business skills and an ability to foresee the needs of the future.

Much of this activity was centered in the Silicon Valley in Northern California where the first computer-related company had been located in 1955. That company attracted thousands of related businesses, and the area became known as the technological capital of the world. Between 1981 and 1986, more than 1000 new technology oriented businesses started there. At the busiest times, five or more, new companies started in a single week. The Silicon Vally attracted many risk-takers and gave them an opportunity to thrive in an atmosphere where creativity was expected and rewarded.

Robert Noyce was a risk-taker who was successful both as an engineer and as an entrepreneur. The son of an Iowa minister, he was informal, genuine, and methodical. Even when he was running one of the most successful businesses in the Silicon Vally, he dressed informally and his office was an open cubicle that looked like everyone else’s. A graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), he started working for one of the first computer-related businesses in 1955. While working with this pioneers of computer engineering, he learned many things about computers and business management.

As an engineer, he co-invented the integrated circuit, which was the basis for later computer design. This integrated circuit was less than an eighth of an inch square but had the same power as a transistor unit that was over 15 inches square or a vacuum tube Unit that was 6.5 feet square. As a businessman, Noyce co-founded Intel, one of the most successful companies in the Silicon Vally and the first company to introduce the microprocessor. The microprocessor chip became the heart of the computer, making it possible for a large computer system that could be held in one’s hand. The directors of Intel could not have anticipated the effects that the microprocessor would have on the world. It made possible the invention of the personal computer and eventually led to the birth of thousands of new businesses. Noyce contributions to the development of the integrated circuit and the microprocessor earned him both wealth and fame before his death in 1990. In fact, many people considered his role to be one of the most significant in the Silicon Vally story.

(to be continued)

1. Why was the computer unattractive to most people before?

2. Where and when had the first computer-related company been located?

3. What area became known as the technological capital of the world?

4. What can you say about the Silicon Vally?

5. Was Robert Noyce successful both as an engineer and as an entrepreneur? Prove this.

6. Is Robert Noyce considered to be one of the most significant figure in the Silicon Vally story?

II. Read and translate the text. Give the title to it. Render the text in English. Decipher all abbreviations used in the text in written form. Put all types of questions to the underlined sentences.

Text B

Normal music CDs and CD-ROMs are made from pre-pressed discs and encased in plastic. The actual data is stored through pits, or tiny indentations, on the silver surface of the internal disc. To read the disc, the drive shines a laser onto the CD-ROM's surface, and by interpreting the way in which the laser light is reflected from the disc it can tell whether the area under the laser is indented or not.

Thanks to sophisticated laser focusing and error detection routines, this process is pretty much ideal. However, there's no way the laser can change the indentations of the silver disc, which in turn means there's no way of writing new data to the disc once its been created. Thus, the technological developments to enable CD-ROMs to be written or rewritten to have necessitated changes to the disc media as well as to the read/write mechanisms in the associated CD-R and CD-RW drives.

At the start of 1997 it appeared likely that CD-R and CD-RW drives would be superseded by DVD technology almost before they had got off the ground. In the event, during that year DVD Forum members turned on each other triggering a DVD standards war and delaying product shipment. Consequently, the writable and rewritable CD formats were given a new lease of life.

For professional users, developers, small businesses, presenters, multimedia designers and home recording artists the recordable CD formats offer a range of powerful storage applications. Their big advantage over alternative removable storage technologies such as MO, LIMDOW and PD is that of CD media compatibility; CD-R and CD-RW drives can read nearly all the existing flavours of CD-ROMs and discs made by CD-R and CD-RW devices can be read on both (MultiRead-capable) CD-ROM drives and current and all future generations of DVD-ROM drive. A further advantage, itself a consequence of their wide compatibility, is the low cost of media; CD-RW media is cheap and CD-R media even cheaper. Their principal disadvantage is that there are limitations to their rewriteability; CD-R, of course, isn't rewritable at all and until recently CD-RW discs had to be reformatted to recover the space taken by "deleted" files when a disc becomes full, unlike the competing technologies which all offer true drag-and-drop functionality with no such limitation. Even now, however, CD-RW rewriteability is less than perfect, resulting in a reduction of a CD-RW disc's storage capacity.

Дата добавления: 2015-07-20