1.How did Bill Gates begin his career?

2.What is Microsoft now?

Bill Gates – the Founder of Microsoft

William Henry Gates was born in Seattle, Washington, in 1955. He is a chairman and chief executive officer of the Microsoft Corporation. Gates was the founder of Microsoft in 1975 together with Paul Allen, his partner in computer language development. While attending Harvard in 1975, Gates together with Allen developed a version of the BASIC computer programming language for the first personal computer.

In the early 1980’s, Gates led Microsoft’s evolution from the developer of computer programming languages to a large computer software company. This transition began with the introduction of MSDOS, the operating systems for the new IBM Personal Computer in 1981. gates also led Microsoft towards the introduction of application software such as the Microsoft Word Processor.

Much of Gates’ success is based on his ability to use market strategy. Gates has accumulated great wealth from his holdings of Microsoft stock. Gates still continues to work personally in product development at Microsoft.

Words:

chairman - председатель

chief executive officer – главный исполнительный директор корпорации BASIC – Бейсик (язык программирования)

Word Processor – текстовый процессор (программа подготовки и программирования текста) market strategy – рыночная стратегия

wealth – богатство, состояние holding – владение акциями stock - акции

XIII. Informational technologies on water transport.

Informational technologies on water transport.

Task. Read and translate the text.

The image of a seaman is always an object of romanticism. Many literary productions are devoted to the workers of sea and river transport. Nevertheless the real situation and the real problems of branch frequently remain secret from the public.

In modern conditions the safety of navigation, realization of search and rescue operations at sea and on the internal waterways are necessary for sea and river transport. That’s why the protection of ships and their crews, port and hydraulic engineering facilities from terrorisms, the use of the latest achievements in the field of information technologies get the priority status. Certainly, there is a specificity, strong and weak points in this segment of the transport market.

On the one hand, transport market is one of the richest according to the number of information communication resources used on sea and river transport. The corporate multiservice networks based on the optical fibre communication lines are formed here. The study of system of high-speed data transfer for sea ships and ice breakers is conducted. The control systems of shipping and elements of the global sea system of communication at disasters with base stations of sea areas А2 and А1, systems of transfer of the navigating warnings, stations receiving and processing the information are used. They may be considered as independent objects of information, and as elements of the universal monitoring system and control of navigation.

From the other hand, the maintenance systems of navigation on many internal waterways have not been updated ideologically and elementary since 40 - 50 years of the last century. Until recently existing networks of communication of internal water and sea transport remained analog, fragmentary and did not meet the requirements on management of a complicated technical complex as sea and river transport is. Taking it into account, possible variants of construction of an economic digital network were worked on the basis of a fiber network of communication. The agreement on development of information technologies on water transport was achieved. It included the use of finished digital networks of the Company ТransTeleCom, modern satellite systems, and also the creation of access centre working in a multiservice mode, in the basic points of main and zone networks of communication.

Russian sea and river fleet also takes an active part in realization of the program « The Global navigating system ». This federal target program determines the purposes and tasks of wide introduction of satellite navigation technologies for the decision of social economic tasks of a transport

infrastructure. It is directed on the creation of the necessary transport preconditions and also on the decision of a question on entry of Russia into the European economic community. The development of safety navigation systems based on the informational communication technologies will allow to operate sea and river branch effectively on the territory of the Russian Federation.

Task 2. Retell the text.

Enjoy yourself.

1.What does "a computer-literate" person mean?

2.What is the role of computers in our society?

3.What is electronics?

4.Where are electronic devices used?

5.What invention contributed to the appearance of electronics?

6.When and where was the transistor invented?

7.What advantages did the transistor have over the vacuum tube?

8.When was the integrated circuit discovered?

9.What is the essence of the integrated circuit?

10.What is microelectronics?

11.What techniques does microelectronics use?

12.What scales of integration are known to you?

13.What do you understand by microminiaturization?

14.What was the very first calculating device?

15.Who gave the ideas for producing logarithm tables?

16.Who invented the first calculating machine?

17.How was the first calculating machine called?

18.What was the first means of coding data?

19.What Business Corporation was the first to produce computers?

20.In what fields were the first computers used?

21.When was the first analog computer built?

22.What was the name of the first digital computer?

23.Who built the first digital computer?

24.What is ENIAC? Decode it.

25.Who contributed the idea of storing data and instructions in binary code?

26.What does binary code mean?

27.What were computers of the first generation based on?

28.What invention contributed to the appearance of the second generation computers?

29.What was the essence of the third computer generation?

30.What is the basis of the fourth computer generation?

31.What is a computer?

32.What are the main functions of the computers?

33.What is a program?

34.What are data?

35.What is data processing?

36.Name four advantages of computer data processing.

37.What is capacity storage?

38.What is hardware?

39.What is software?

40.Who designs computers?

41.What are the main functional units of a digital computer?

42.What types of storage do you know?

43.What is a binary number system?

44.What is storage media?

45.How is storage capacity measured (in what units)?

46.What do you know of electronic memories?

47.What can you say about electromechanical memories?

48.How do you understand the term "access time"?

49.What is RAM / ROM?

50.What storage devices do you know?

51.What is the function of the CPU?

52.What two functional units does the CPU consist of?

53.What components does control unit include?

54.What devices has the arithmetic-logical unit?

55.What is the ALU function?

56.What is the function of CU?

57.What is the heart (brain) of a microprocessor?

58.What is the purpose of input devices?

59.How do you understand the term "input-output environment"?

60.What groups can I/O devices be classified into according to their speed?

61.Name devices used for inputting information.

62.What is touch pad?

63.What is a scanner used for?

64.What types of printers do you know?

65.When did the first personal computer appear?

66.What differs PC from large computer systems?

67.What is a personal computer?

68.What are the main spheres of PC applications?

69.What professions are in great need of computers?

70.What is modem and what is it used for?

71.What is programming?

72.What is a program?

73.What techniques for planning the program logic do you know?

74.What do you understand by pseudocode?

75.What is a code?

76.What is the foundation of any programming language?

77.What programming languages do you know?

78.What is FORTRAN used for? Decode it.

79.What does COBOL serve for? Decode it.

80.What is WWW?

Texts for additional reading.

Electronic brain.

Computers are well-known to represent a relatively new branch of science, the first of them having appeared less than fifty years ago. Although still new, these machines are already bringing about a real revolution in science, technology, statistics and automatic control.

The reason for this lies in the fact that a mathematical formula can be found for almost all scientific and technical problems. They can be solved without a computer but it would require millions of arithmetical operations. No wonder that many problems of exceptional importance remained unsolved for a long time, the volume of the calculations required being above human possibilities.

A high speed electronic computer can carry out several thousand arithmetical operations in one second. A calculation, which would have taken several years of intense human work in the past, is now done in a few minutes or hours.

A number of various complicated problems have already been solved with the help of computers. The principle of this wonderful machine lies in counting electric impulses. Numbers are represented as a sequence of such impulses, and a radio-technical scheme counts them carrying out addition, subtraction, multiplication and divisional, higher mathematical calculation being reduced to these four operations.

If we introduce into the scheme first one number and then another, the result will yield the sum of these two numbers. Subtraction is reduced to the addition of negative numbers. Multiplication is done by repeated additions the necessary number of times, a division — by repeated subtraction.

Electronic machines work according to a programme, prepared in advance, which determines the sequence of operations. They have a very efficient electronic "memory" which stores the initial date, the intermediate numbers and final results as well as the working commands given to the machine.

The electronic machine can also be used for controlling automatic production. Signals given by measuring instruments and controlling devices are introduced into the machine which sends the necessary commands to the control panel according to the programme.

This machine can also be used to make translations from one language into another by converting words into figures and vice versa A simplified picture of what takes place will be given below.

All the instruments invented up to now have served to save man's labour. But it is electronic computers the importance of which cannot be underestimated that come to the help of the human brain, thus opening boundless possibilities.

Words:

to represent - представлять less than - менее, чем

a new branch of science - новая отрасль науки to bring out - вызвать

to be solved - решаться

1)It can count with incredible speed.

2)It can modify its instructions.

3)It can store hundreds of millions of information bits.

Computers.

We live in the age of great development in science and engineering. The invention of electronic computers has freed man's brain from the work of measurement and computation. A computer is a device solving problems automatically. The first electronic computers went into operation in 1945. Electronic computers work very quickly, they can carry out several thousands of arithmetic operations in one second. We may divide them into two groups: machines that can measure and those that can count. The latter can add, subtract, multiply and divide. They can combine many problems and solve them in any order. Electronic machines can be used for controlling production.

The Internet.

The Internet is a brand-new way of exploring the world. This symbol of the 20-th century is becoming more and more popular among the people of different ages and social standing. Through the Internet people get all kind of information. The Internet as a means of communication is very convenient: a person can get a lot of information without leaving his apartment. The Internet breaks the traditional frontiers. Through it a person, who lives in Moscow, gets information which is stored in the libraries of Oxford, Cambridge or Washington. The Internet is the global communication system. With its help a person can find friends, who share his

interests and tastes in any part of the world. Such programmes as ICQ (I Seek You) and AOL (America Online) Messenger, specifically designed for communication, make it easy and thrilling. Through the Internet it is not only possible to receive messages from a friend in the United States, but see a picture of him and hear his voice. The only problem is that people in different countries speak different languages and in order to explore the mil depth of the Internet one should know the universal language of international communications, English.

Computers

When Charles Babbage, a professor of mathematics at Cambridge University, invented the first calculating machine in 1812 he could hardly have imagined the situation we found ourselves in today. Nearly everything we do in the modern world is helped, or even controlled, by computers, the complicated descendants of his simple machine.

Computers are being used more and extensively in the world today, because they are more efficient than human being. They have much better memories and can store huge amounts of information, and they can do calculations in a fraction of the time taken by a human mathematician. No man can do 500.000sums in one second, but a computer can. In fact, computers can do many things faster and better than people. They can pay wages, reserve seats on trains, control machines in factories and even play chess, write poetry, or compose music.

New microcomputer

An entirely new microcomputer has been developed by the Institute of Management Problems. It is equipped with an arithmetical logical device. This microcomputer can perform various logical functions. In other words, it possesses a solving field for various commands. It is comparatively easy to change commands or add new ones. The PC-300 is very small in size and weight (25 kg), is resistant to

temperature fluctuations, does not require special ventilation, is reliable and easy to operate. It can be used in computer control complexes as an information, processing unit, and also as a built-in computer in various analyzing and display devices. It receives data, calculates the optimum conditions and supplies signals for the control of technological processes. The field of application of the new computer is vast. It can analyze various substances in oil, gas, chemical and food industries. It can also be used for processing information about conditions in the environment, controls.

Who made the first computer?

More than 150 years ago, an English mathematician named Charles Babbage began to build the first computer. He called it The Analytical Engine. But he was not able to finish his project. His dreams of building a computer had come too early. Some of the parts needed for his machine had not been invented. For many years, scientists studied Mr. Babbage’s plans and ideas. Then, in the early 1940’s, an American named Howard Aiken built the first modem electric powered computer. It was named Mark I, but Mr. Aiken nicknamed it “Babbage’s Dream Come True”. Mark I was huge and noisy. It was 45 feet long, 8 feet high, and had a million different parts. It could only do two addition problems per second.

Today computers are much quieter and smaller than those early machines. They also work much faster. Some can do more than a million math problems in a single second! With computers you can play your favourite computer game, draw a picture, or learn math facts. Computers have changed our lives!

Just for fun.

COMPUTER WISDOM

1.Home is where you hang your @.

2.The E-mail of the species is more deadly than the mail.

3.A journey of a thousand sites begins with a single click.

4.You can't teach an old mouse new clicks.

5.Great groups from little icons grow.

6.Speak softly and carry a cellular phone.

7.C:\ is the root of all directories.

8.Don't put all your hypes in one home page.

9.Pentium wise; pen and paper foolish.

10.The modem is the message.

11.Too many clicks spoil the browse.

12.The geek shall inherit the earth.

13.A chat has nine lives.

14.Don't byte off more than you can view.

15.Fax is stranger than fiction.

16.What boots up must come down.

17.Windows will never cease.

18.In Gates we trust.

19.Virtual reality is its own reward.

20.Modulation in all things.

21.A user and his leisure time are soon parted.

22.There's no place like http://www.home.com

23.Know what to expect before you connect!

24.Oh, what a tangled website we weave when first we practice.

25.Speed thrills.

26.Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him to surf the Net and he won't bother you for weeks.

If there had been computers in 1776

Mr. Jefferson: Gentlemen, the summer grows hot, and it is essential that we complete this Declaration of Independence.

Mr. Franklin: Wait a minute, Thomas. I have to reboot here.