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History of data processing

The computer didn’t just “happen” along during the last twenty-five years. Computing can be traced back to the primitive tribes. Ancient calculating involved the manipulation of the fingers to represent various numbers. The first data processing tools were used to facilitate counting. Variations and refinements of counting led to fairly elaborate calculators involving addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. As man continued to work with numbers and the demand for information increased, more complex devices were developed. The computer is the culmination of thousands of years of research to develop a machine capable of processing data at high speeds with self-checking.

Exercise 6. Read the text. Be ready to speak on: 1) digital computer; 2) analog computer.

TEXT 4

Digital and analog computers

Computers can be either digital or analog. Digital refer to the processes in computers that manipulate binary numbers (0s or 1s), which represent switches that are turned on or off by electrical current. Analog refer to numerical values that have a continuous range. Both 0 and 1 are analog numbers, but so is 1.5 or a number like p (approximately 3.14). As an example, consider a desk lamp. If it has a simple on/off switch, then it is digital, because the lamp either produces light at a given moment or it does not. If a dimmer replaces the on/off switch, then the lamp is analog, because the amount of light can vary continuously from on to off and all intensities in between.

Analog computer systems were the first type to be produced. A popular analog computer used in the 20th century was the slide ruler. It performs calculations by sliding a narrow, gauged wooden strip inside a rulerlike holder. Because the sliding is continuous and there is no mechanism to stop at one exact value, the slide rule is analog. New interest has been shown recently in analog computers, particularly in areas such as neural networks that respond to continuous electrical signals.

TEXT 5

History of programming languages

Programming language is a composition of vocabulary and set of grammatical rules for instructing a computer to perform specific tasks. Each language has a unique set of keywords* (words that it understands) and a special syntax for organizing program instructions. Machine languages are the languages that the computer actually understands. They are the least complex and the closest to computer hardware programming languages. They consist entirely of numbers, and only numbers, — memory addresses and operation codes. Each different type of CPU (Central Processing Unit) has its own unique machine language. Lying between machine languages and high-level languages are languages called assembly languages.

Assembly languages, or assemblers are similar to machine languages, but they are much easier to program in because they allow a programmer to substitute names for numbers: ones and zeros and enable them to use meaningful names for 72 instructions. In fact, the first assembler was simply a system for representing machine instructions with simple mnemonics**.

But most often the term programming language refers to high-level languages, such as BASIC, C, C++, COBOL, FORTRAN, Ada, Pascal, etc. High-level programming languages are more complex than assemblers and much more complex than machine languages. They all fall into two major categories: imperative languages and declarative languages.

Imperative languages describe computation in terms of a program state and statements that change the program state. Imperative programs are a sequence of commands for the computer to perform.

The earliest imperative languages were the machine languages of the original computers. In these languages, instructions were very simple. FORTRAN, Formula translation developed at IBM starting in 1954, was a compiled language that allowed named variables complex expressions, subprograms, and many other features now common in imperative languages. Declarative programming languages stand in contrast to imperative languages. Whereas imperative languages give the computer a list of instructions to execute in a particular order, declarative programming describes to the computer a set of conditions and relationships between variables, and then the language executor (an interpreter or compiler) applies a fixed algorithm to these relations to produce a result. The advantage of declarative languages is that programs written in them are closer to the program specification. Programming, therefore, is at a higher level than in the imperative languages.

Notes:

*keywords – ключевые слова

**mnemonics – символы, вызывающие определенную ассоциацию

Exercise 1. Give definitions to the following:

1. Programming language is…

2. Machine languages are…

3. Assembly languages are…

4. High-level programming languages are… .

Exercise 2. Make a summary of the text.

Unit 10

WORD-STUDY