Урок 11

Текст A

ELECTRONICS AND TECHNICAL PROGRESS

Large-scale application of electronic technique is a trend of technical progress capable of revolutionizing many branches of industry.

Electronics as a science studies the properties of electrons, the laws of their motion, the laws of the transformation of various kinds of energy through the media of electrons.

Electronics and radio electronics in our country have developed from this laboratory into hundreds of research institutes and laboratories employing dozen of thousands of people.

At present it is difficult to name all branches of science and technology which are based on electronic techniques. If there were no radio electronics we would not have cybernetics, cosmonautics and nuclear physics. It is no mistake to compare the birth of electronics to such great achievements of mankind as the discovery of fire, the use of the wheel, and the penetration into the secrets of the atom.

Electronics greatly helps to conduct fundamental research in nuclear physics, in the study of the nature of matter and in the realization of thermonuclear reactions.

Electronic telescopes can be used by astronomers to penetrate into the unknown regions of the universe.

An even greater role is being played by electronics in the development of the chemical industry.

Упражнение 1. Расскажите об одной из своих профессиональных проблем, по возможности используя подчеркнутые выражения.

Текст Б

COMPUTERS

Simply speaking, computer is a device that accepts information, called data, processes it according to some scheme or program written in advance, and provides results. Data may consist of numbers, names or combinations of letters, symbols and numbers which mean something to the computer user.

Data can be processed in a computer in various ways. The computer can perform arithmetic operations on the data, it can scan large lists of data and find items of data which are important to the user, or it can perform more complicated operations of data handling. When the computer has performed its work on the data, it can provide the results to the user in a wide variety of forms, from a simple listing of answers to large reports.

In the mid-nineteenth century a mathematician, Charles Babbage, designed the first computer. The computer was completely mechanical but it was not built because of the low level of the technology at that time. It was only in 1944 that the first mechanical computer was built. The first electronic computer ENIAC appeared in 1948. It used a great number of vacuum tubes and its size and weight were great.

Soon they built a simpler and better version of ENIAC, which was called BINAC. In 1950s the development of computer industry went on at a very high rate.

Computers can be described according to the type of job they can perform. A special purpose computer is designed to do one specific job; a general purpose computer can do many different jobs.

Задание 1. Расскажите об одной из своих профессиональных проблем, по возможности используя подчеркнутые выражения.

Текст В

BASIC is a high-level programming language principally designed for developing programs in conversational mode, in an on-line programming environment. The name is an acronym for Beginner’s App-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code. In a conversational system each element of the program is input in sequence directly to the computer, which carries out elementary checking and validation of each step before the next one is input. BASIC is designed to simplify conversational programming by avoiding any complications of structure or format, and providing extentive diagnostic facilities as an aid to debugging and error correction.

The BASIC language contains two main parts, the source language statements themselves, which are the instructions forming the actual program, and system commands, which allow the user to control the use of the BASIC compiling system.

The source language facilities are comparable with FORTRAN with additional facilities for handling data transfers to and from files and powerful matrix handling facilities.

The particular feature of BASIC is the ability to allow the user to interact with the program while it is being executed. The basic element of the program is the “line”, which consists of a statement of the source language identified by a unique line number. Line numbers define the logical sequence of statements within the program and act as labels. Since the sequence in which statements are executed depends on their line number, the order in which they are input is immaterial. This means that insertions and corrections can be input without the need to copy out the whole program, provided the correct line number sequence is maintained.

System commands allow the user to use the control and editing facilities of the language. Editing facilities allow the user to delete parts of a program without typing in all statements line by line. Facilities also allow the user to output all or any part of any program onto a terminal. File maintenance facilities allow the user to set up and maintain files of program statements which can be retrieved and executed or combined into other program. Instant calculation facilities allow the user to perform any arithmetic function available within the source language without creating a program to do so.

Задание 2. Расскажите об одной из своих профессиональных проблем, по возможности используя подчеркнутые выражения.