3 Adjectives with two syllables may be like 1 or 2 above in that

they will add the ending -er and -est if they end in -y or -ly,

-ow, -le an -er.

Examples:

ДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДД

Absolute Comparative Superlative

ДДДДДДДДДДДД ДДДДДДДДДДДДДД ДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДД

- y tiny tinier tiniest

speedy speedier speediest

- ly early earlier earliest

friendly friedndlier friendliest

- ow shallow shallower shallowest

narrow narrower narrowest

- er clever cleverer cleverest

ДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДДД

Quiz (Software systems)

Unit 6

1. What is a program designed to perform a specific function cal-

led ?

2. The ....... editor is a systems program that fetches required

systems routines and links them to the object module.

3. What is a DBMS ?

4. What does DTP stand for ?

5. What type of applications program is used for information ret-

rieval ?

6. What type of applications program is used for financial plan-

ning ?

7. A set of applications programs which can share the same data

is known as an .......... .

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8. What name is given to the set of programs which manages and

coordinates all the hardware and software ?

9. What type of programs are designed for particular situations

and are often written by the user ?

10. What is the title of the person is overall charge of a large

computer system ?

U N I T 7

Task 1

Discuss the following questions:

1. How small do you think computers can usefully become?

2. To what extent does the size of a computer influence what it

can be used for ?

Think of examples to illustrate your answer.

Task 2

Before reading the text, match these words with their defi-

nitions:

a clipboard 1 surface on which pictures or data are ashown

b stylus 2 electrical force

c screen 3 pattern used as a guide for creating letters

or characters

d grid 4 individual dot on a computer screen

e voltage 5 network of lines crossing at right angles

f pixel 6 pointed implement for drawing or writing

g template 7 portable board with a clip at the top for

holding papers

Task 3

Read the text and decide why the author chose the title De-

lete Keys. Can you suggest a better title ?

Delete Keys - Clipboard Technology

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For the last generation, Silicon Valley and Tokyo have been

working to design computers that are even easier to use. There is

one thing, however, that has prevented the machines from becoming

their user-friendiest: you still have to input data with a keybo-

ard, and that can require you to do a lot of typing and to memo-

rize a lot of elaborate commands.

Enter the clipboard computer, a technology that has been in

development for the last 20 years but took hold in the mass mar-

ket only this year. Clipboard PCs - which, as their name sug-

gests, are not much bigger than actual clipboard - replace the

keyboard with a liquid crystal display (LCD) screen and an elect-

ronic stylus. User input data by printing individual letters di-

rectly on the screen.

There are two technologies at work in a clipboard PC: one

allows raw data to get into the computer and the other allows the

computer to figure out what that data means. The first technology

relies principally on hardware and varies depending on the parti-

cular computer. In one system, marketed under the name GRIDPad,

the computer`s LCD screen is covered by a sheet of glass with a

transparent conductive coating. Voltage is sent across the glass

in horizontal and vertical lines forming a fine grid; at any po-

int on the grid, the voltage is slightly different. When the sty-

lus - which is essentially a voltmeter - touches the screen, it

informs the computer of the voltage at that point. The computer

uses this information to determine where the stylus is and causes

a liquid crystal pixel to appear at those coordinates. The posi-

tion of the stylus is monitored several hundred times a second,

so as the stylus moves across the glass, whole string of pixel

are activated.

`What we do is sort of connec the dots,` says Jeff Hawkings,

the creator of GRIDPad . `Users can then write whatever they want

on the screen with a kind of electronic ink.`

Making that writing comprehensible to the computer, however,

requires the help of some powerful software. When the stylus is

being used, the computer is programmed to look for moments when

the tip does not touch the screen for a third of a second or mo-

re. Every time this happens - and it happens a lot when somebody