Vocabulary practice section 3

1. Complete the gaps choosing the right option.

1. Input-output devices allow the computer to ………. with its external environment.

a) compute; b) command; c) communicate.

2. An I/O interface is a special ………. that converts input data to the internal codes.

a) register; b) processor; c) plotter.

3. I / О ……… match the physical and electrical charac­teristics of input-output devices.

a) interchanges; b) interfaces; c) interpretations.

4. Letter-quality, dot-matrix and ink-jet printers are all ……… printers.

a) line; b) page; c) character.

5. Input-output units link the computer to its external ………

a) requirement; b) development; c) environment.

6. I / О devices can be classified according to their speed, visual displays being ……… devices.

a) high-speed; b)medium-speed; c) low-speed.

2. Look at these extracts from people talking about printing jobs. Which type of printer is each person talking about?

1. “Can you order some more toner for the printer on the third floor?”

2. “The plans for the new office building are almost ready. Shall I print a copy for the meeting ?”

3. “We’re almost out of bar codes. Simon, can you print some more?”

4. “I couldn’t believe it – I was in the middle of printing my report and I ran out of ink!”

5. “As soon as the client approves this version, you need to print a high-quality colour copy for them to check.”

6. “Andrew, can you print off another set of address labels for me?”

3. Complete these sentences with words from the Key Information Section.

1. The differences in ……. are noticeable: the more dots per inch, the clearer the image.

2. A resolution of between 600 and 2400 ……. ensured that even text as small as 2 pt was legible.

3. Passengers with an electronic ticket will need a …….. of ticket confirmation or a boarding pass to be admitted to secured gate areas.

4. The key advance of recent years is printing speed: the latest generation of ink-jets prints black-and-white text at 15 …….(…..).

5. With appropriate software, you can view the images on a computer, manipulate them, or send them to a ……. and produce excellent quality colour copies.

6. A ……. is a dedicated computer that connects a printer to a network. It enables users to share printing resources.

7. A ……. is a utility that organizes and arranges any documents waiting to be printed.

8. In computers, a ……. is a program installed to control a particular type of printer.

4. Choose the most appropriate type of printer for these situations.

a home user who wants to print text documents and family photographs. businessmen who need to print in large quantities at high quality in an office. engineers who want to make detailed line drawings. professional typesetters in desktop publishing (e.g. to publish magazines). a company that wants to print carbon copies of bills and receipts.

5. Identify these types of printers.

1. The resolution depends on the number of pins (9, 24 or 48)

2. The quality (resolution) of the images ranges from 300 to 1,200 dots per inch (dpi)

3. Provides high quality output - a resolution of 600/2,400 (dpi)

4. Provides the highest resolution - more than 3,000 dpi

5. Provides high quality for linework (like lines and curves)

6. Find the terms which correspond to these definitions.

1. a container that holds the ink in an ink-jet printer.

2. powdered ink used in laser printers.

3. small needles that press on the inked ribbon to make the characters on paper.

4. technology that produces text and pictures by hammering pins against a ribbon and the paper.

5. a language that tells a printer how to print a document.

6. a peripheral combining a printer, a fax machine, a photocopier and a scanner into one device.

7. Read the advertisements for printers below, and then answer the questions. Look at the advertisements again and compare the printers. Talk about their: speed, memory, fonts, emulations, resolution, service, price, noise.

MICRO LASER XT

Personal laser printer. 5 pages per minute.

4 MB RAM expandable to 64 MB. Parallel interface. 200 sheet input tray. 35 resident fonts. One-year on-site maintenance. Prints on a wide range of materials and sizes. ₤649

CRYSTAL LASER PRINTER II

14 pages per minute. 20 MB RAM. Two 200 sheet selectable input trays. LCD display. 80 internal scalable fonts. A resolution of 2,400 dpi. Comes with PostScript language and PCL (printer control language). Telephone hotline support. ₤999

COLOUR POSTSCRIPT PRINTER

Colour printer. 40 Adobe Postscript fonts. 36 MB RAM with a SCSI Interface for an optional 20 MB hard disk. Parallel, serial and AppleTalk interfaces. HP plotter emulation. Thermal printing system. 30-day money-back guarantee and 1 year's on-site parts and labour. ₤2249

COLOUR INK-JET

Stunning Plug & Play colour printer. Brilliant photo quality (up to 720 dpi) and fast-drying ink. Produces 8 pages per minute in plain text and 4 ppm in colour. 150 page paper tray. Fast, friendly service. ₤210

STYLUS DOT-MATRIX PRINTER

Dot-matrix printer with 24 pins. Prints text and graphics. 450 cps. Compatible special interface. Free unlimited hotline support for our customers. One year on-site maintenance. ₤179

TURBO LASER WRITER QR

Workgroup laser printer. 15 pages per minute. 1,200 dpi for graphics. 36 MB of RAM. Includes Adobe Postscript and Hewlett Packard PCL printer languages. 75 resident fonts. Connectivity: one bi-directional parallel port, one LocalTalk port, and one Ethernet port for networks. 12 month warranty. ₤1150

1. How many laser printers are advertised here?

2. Is there a printer that operates by spraying ink droplets onto paper?

3. Which laser printer offers the highest resolution, or output quality?

4. Which one would you recommend to a friend who does not have much money?

5. Which one has more internal fonts?

6. Can you find two types of laser printer languages?

7. What connectivity features are offered by the Turbo laser Writer QR?

GRAMMAR PRACTICE SECTION

Reported speech. 1. Match the sentences with the explanations.

no tense change – past simple, past perfect	The employer asked what computer applications the candidate used.
no tense change - information is still true	He said the hacker who illegally accessed our databases was arrested the day before.
no tense change – always true	He asked the technician to debug the program.
no change - modal verb	They told the manager to update the database.
change of reference to people, places, time, things	The CEO said that our stock control had been computerized completely.
tense change – move back in time	It was confirmed that the new computer equipment was improving the performance of all the departments.
reported question	He said computers are getting smaller and smaller.
reported request	He said there is always a bug in any program.
reported command	The technician said the company should install new antivirus software.
passive reporting verb	She pointed out that people used prototypes of computers in ancient times.

2. Report the following sentences trying to use various reporting verbs.

1. Shadow data contains the remnants of computer data that was written previously to a track.

2. In recent years flat screens have become increasingly popular.

3. Prices for flat screens are falling.

4. The world's first computer printer was a mechanically driven apparatus invented by Charles Babbage.

5. Would you mind printing this out for me?

6. Many computer systems allow the user to install or create any user interface they desire.

7. Carelessly-arranged computer screens and keyboard could lead to ergonomicsproblems such as eyestrain andrepetitive strain injurieswhile using a keyboard for long periods.

8. A hacker broke into our security system last week.

9. I found the problem when I was launching this program.

10. As technology improved during the 1990s, the usefulness and popularity of laptops increased.

11. What basic functions does a computer perform?

12. The 2000s saw the rise of multi-core processorsandflash memory.

13. Do not interrupt the spelling checker while it is running.

14. You've saved this file in the wrong directory.

15. If you buy a modem make sure it conforms to Hayes™ standards.

16. He reconfigured the field structure in the file.

READING PRACTICE SECTION

Bend me, shape me, anyway you want me Electronic screens as thin as paper are coming soon

Over the years, the screens on laptops, televisions, mobile phones and so on have got sharper, wider and thinner. They are about to get thinner still, but with a new twist. By using flexible components, these screens will also become bendy. Some could even be rolled up and slipped into your pocket like a piece of electronic paper. These thin sheets of plastic will be able to display words and images; a book, perhaps, or a newspaper or a magazine. And now it looks as if they might be mass produced in much the same way as the printed paper they are emulating.

The crucial technological development happened recently at the Flexible Display Centre at Arizona State University. Using a novel lithographic process invented by HP Labs and an electronic ink produced by E Ink, the centre’s researchers succeeded in printing flexible displays onto long rolls of a special plastic film made by DuPont. To make individual screens, the printed film is sliced up into sections rather as folios for magazines or newspapers would be cut from a printed web of paper.

The resulting “electrophoretic” screens are lightweight and consume only a fraction of the power of a typical LCD . The first trials of consumer versions could begin within a few years.

Flickering beginnings

Although printing flexible screens in this way will help to make them affordable, they still have a long way to go to catch LCDs. For that, two things need to happen. One is that the displays must turn from black-and-white to colour. The other is that they must be able to refresh their images at a rate fast enough to show moving pictures. Researchers at the Flexible Display Centre and elsewhere are working on ways to do that, and there seems little doubt it will happen. Yet even with their present limitations, flexible screens have some important advantages over LCDs.

For a start, LCDs are difficult and costly to make. Most are produced in huge, ultra-clean factories using batch processes similar to those for making silicon chips. This is a fractious, finicky process and tiny defects in the materials, or failures in the alignment of the different layers, can result in 20% or more of a batch being scrapped. Moreover, the glass means LCDs are heavy and easily broken, as anyone who has dropped a laptop knows to his cost.

Another drawback is that LCDs consume a lot of power because they are lit from behind. It also means that the image can be hard to see in bright sunlight.

Electrophoretic displays work in a different way, using a form of electronic ink that has been under development since the 1970s. E Ink’s version employs tiny capsules filled with a clear fluid containing positively charged white particles and negatively charged black ones. The capsules are arranged as pixels and electric charges applied to each pixel pull either the black or the white particles towards the top of the capsule (and the opposite colour to the bottom). Unlike an LCD’s, this image does not require backlighting. Instead, the user relies on reflected light, as he would if he were reading a sheet of printed paper. Moreover, once the particles in the capsules have settled down they stay put. That means the image remains on the screen without drawing power. A further dose of electricity is required only when the image changes; when a user “turns” to the next page, for example. Not only does this mean that electrophoretic displays are cheaper to run, the lack of constant refreshment makes them more comfortable to read—as comfortable, it is claimed, as printed paper.

Colour section The one feature these screens do not yet offer is colour and, though colour versions will surely come to market, no one is yet sure which version will succeed. Electrophoretic displays can use coloured particles and filters to produce red, green and blue subpixels, but as each colour occupies only a

third of a pixel’s area, the brightness of the image is correspondingly reduced. Liquavista, a spin-off from Philips, is trying something called “electrowetting”. This uses an electrical field to modify the surface tension of coloured oils and water within pixels that are mounted on a flexible Teflon base. As each pixel is activated, the wetting properties of the oil and water change, making colours visible.

Another approach is to use materials that emit light. Some firms, such as Sony, are looking at organic light-emitting diodes composed of thin films of organic molecules which generate light in response to an electric current.

Photonic crystals are a further alternative. These are tiny particles that have a crystal structure which influences the flow of photons, the particles of light. By changing the structure of such a crystal slightly, using an electric charge, the colour of the light reflected by that crystal will change too. Tune the crystals appropriately and you can create different colours.

There are also hybrid methods, like that used by Adrian Geisow at HP Labs’ campus in Bristol, England. He has taken a conventional approach to generating colour, using liquid crystals and red, green and blue filters. However, he has done so in a plastic film produced in a printing-type process. The screen can be backlit, like a standard LCD, but it is capable of retaining its image because the material the liquid crystals sit on encourages the pixels to stay transparent or opaque once they have been switched. However it is eventually done, Dr Geisow is convinced that putting colour into flexible screens is what will turn them into a very big picture indeed.

Read the comments to the article. Which comments do you agree with? Why? Which one(s) do you like best? What is your opinion on the article and on the technology it talks about? Do you think there is a future for it? What would you write to comment it?

Readers comments

1. Very inspiring! Can we do away with the tons and tons of newsprint tossed in the garbage

bin every day? That would save the world many trees every day, and maybe even my mail slot a few useless flyers I never read. 2. I have been hearing about these flexible organic display being 'just around the corner' for at least a decade - haven't seen one yet at my local Best Buy.

3. I can see myself using this flexible display to wallpaper my home. Then in the blink of an eye, I could change the theme of my home to whatever I desired. Now all I need is some holographic furniture to go with it.

4. If it’s comfortable to use for lying about and waterproof for the tub it will be as good as the Economist magazine to me. If I can comment on the articles using the internet version it will be better.

5. Great, soon people will read the newspaper on these walking down sidewalks and down hallways. Everyone will bump into each other and the world will be a friendlier place. I guess these devices could save paper/trees but, once obsolete, they will just pile up as e-waste when they return to their birthplace in China.

SPEAKING/WRITING PRACTICE SECTION

1. Decode the abbreviations related to computer output. Find more similar abbreviations.

CRT LCD TV PC TFT USB VGA VDU PDL dpi cpm ppm cps

2. Describe the monitor of your computer and its performance characteristics. How can you change the picture using the controls?

3. Read about what you should do to protect your eyes when working on a computer. Add more recommendations to this list. Do you always follow these recommendations?

4. Describe the 'home cinema' of your dreams. Use these notes to help you.

Type of display: CRT television, LCD screen, plasma TV or video projector
Screen size		Resolution (image quality)
Video source: TV, VCR or DVD recorder		Sound capabilities
	5. Describe the characteristics of the printer that you have or would like to have at home or at work. Give details about: type of printer, speed, noise, resolution, ink cartridges, price and customer support.

5. Make a report on one of the topics below.

• The evolution of output technologies.

• Functions and technical characteristics of different output devices (especially those not described in detail in the Key Information Sections).

• New multi-functional generation of input-output devices.

• The future of output devices and technologies.

6. Describe how a printer works using the pictures below.

7. Describe how a VDU (LCD, plasma, CRT) works using the pictures below.

Plasma technology CRT

8. Summarise the information about output devices using the scheme below to help you.

FUN AND GAMES SECTION

1. Each of the sets of four words below can be linked by one other word. What are the missing words?

2. Word search

Find the terms and expressions hidden in the letters below; you can read across (any direction), down or up. The clues below will help you to find all the words.

1. The smallest single unit or point of a display whose colour or brightness can be displayed.

2. A device that prints your texts or graphics on paper.

3. A group of pins a printer uses to create precise dots.

4. A substance a printer sprays onto the paper to generate an image.

5. A beam a printer uses to fix the ink to the paper.

6. The output quality, the clarity of the image.

7. A hard copy.

8. The powder attracted to paper by an electrostatic charge and then fused on by a hot roller.

9. A type of printer using ink & fine pens held in a carriage to draw detailed designs on paper.

10. A visual unit of a computer (2 different words).

11. An unsteady light that goes on and off quickly.

12. The part of a television or computer where the picture or information appears.

13. A type of television or computer screen that has special gas inside.

14. A small container that you put inside a printer to make it work.

15. The part of a television that produces the picture on the screen.

16. Liquid ……. displays are currently the most popular display device for computers.

17. ……. rate is the number of times in a second that a display is illuminated.

18. A small round mark or spot.

19. A picture on the screen of a television, cinema, or computer.

20. The information produced by a computer.

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HUMOR SECTION

What does each of the cartoons imply? Why is it funny, in your opinion? Explain its humour.

Dangerous laser printers

DATA STORAGE

KEY INFORMATION SECTION 1

Computer data storage, often called storage or memory, refers to computer components, devices, and recording media that retain digital data used for computing for some interval of time. It provides one of the core functions of the modern computer, that of information retention.

Hierarchy of storage

PRIMARY

STORAGE

OFF-LINE STORAGE

INPUT-OUTPUT

CHANNELS

REMOVABLE MEDIA DRIVE

SECONDARY STORAGE

MASS STORAGE DEVICE

HARD DISK

REMOVABLE MEDIUM

(CD, DVD)

Memory usually refers to a form of semiconductor storage known as random access memory (RAM) and sometimes other forms of fast but temporary storage.

Storage more commonly refers to mass storage - optical discs, forms of magnetic storage like hard disks, and other types slower than RAM, but of a more permanent nature.

Primary storage is the only one directly accessible to the CPU which continuously reads instructions stored there and executes them as required. Any data actively operated on is also stored there in uniform manner. Primary storage is also calledmain storageorinternal stor­age.

The specific functionsof internal storage are to hold (store): all data to be processed; intermediate results of process­ing; final results of processing; all the instructions required for ongoing process.

Another name for primary storage is mem­ory, because of its similarity to a function of the human brain. But computer storage differs from human memory in im­portant respects: it must be able to retain very large numbers of symbol combinations, without forgetting or changing any details and locate all its contents quickly upon demand.

Information in computer memory is stored in the form of coded characters. The codes are based upon a binary number systemthat has only two possible values, 0 and 1. Each binary digit is called abit. As the information capacity of a single bit is limited to 2 alternatives, codes are based upon combinations of bits, calledbinary codes. A fixed number of consecutive bits that repre­sent a character is called abyte. The most common byte size is 8-bit byte.

Secondary storage, or storage is not directly accessible by the CPU. The computer usually uses its input/output channels to access secondary storage and transfers the desired data using intermediate area in primary storage. Secondary storage does not lose the data when the device is powered down—it is non-volatile.

In modern computers, hard disks are usually used as secondary storage. A very significant access-time difference distinguishes solid-state memory from rotating magnetic storage devices: hard disks are typically about a million times slower than memory. Some other examples of secondary storage technologies are: flash memory (e.g. USB sticks or keys), floppy disks, magnetic tape, paper tape, punch cards, standalone RAM disks, and Zip drives.

The secondary storage is often formatted according to a file system format to organize data into files and directories, providing also additional information (called metadata) describing the owner of a certain file, the access time, the access permissions, and other information.

Most computer operating systems use the concept of virtual memory, allowing utilization of more primary storage capacity than is physically available in the system. As the primary memory fills up, the system moves the least-used chunks (pages) to secondary storage devices (to a swap file or page file), retrieving them later when they are needed.

VOCABULARY PRACTICE SECTION 1 1. Match the terms with the definitions.
	1. primary	a. one of the performance characteris­tics of storage measured in binary digits;
	2. secondary	b. memory that has random access to the information;
	3. binary codes	c. combination of units of information;
	4. RAM	d. area of memory where protected pro­grams can be read from, not writ­ten on;
	5. bit	e. a fixed number of consecutive bits representing a character;
	6. byte	f. initializing; setting tracks and sectors on magnetic disks
	7. ROM	g. additional information about a certain file
	8. capacity	h. part of memory having lower speed but greater capacity;
	9. backing store	i. a unit of information or binary digit;
	10. formatting	j. the most expensive part of memory having the least capacity and the fast­est access time.
	11. directory	k. a catalogue of where each piece of data is stored and how to find it
	12. metadata	l. secondary memory

2. Complete the gaps with the words from the box.

primary permanent processing secondary CPU memories location data storage

Computers are used widely for storage of data. Like us, computers have 1….. too. There are two types of 2….. in a computer, primary and secondary. 3….. storage is where the computer holds 4….. that it is currently using. This place is also known as computer memory or temporary storage. For example, you tell your computer to store two numbers

after 5….. them. The computer will get these two numbers from specified location in its memory. After the ALU adds the two numbers, the result will be stored to another 6….. in the memory.

7….. storage is used to store 8….. data. For example, you are working on a word document and are planning to continue tomorrow. You cannot store the document in the primary storage because it is temporary. The document will be lost if you turn off the computer and so, it has to be saved in the secondary storage which is separated from the 9…..

KEY INFORMATION SECTION 2

Many different forms of storage have been invented. So far, no practical universal storage medium exists, and all forms of storage have some drawbacks. Therefore a computer system usually contains several kinds of storage, each with an individual purpose. The most commonly used storage technologies are semiconductor, magnetic, and optical.

The most important performance characteristicsof a stor­age unit are:

• Speed,measured in cycle time.

• Capacity,measured by the number of ma­chine words or binary digits.

• Reliability,measured by the number of failures per unit of time.

Semiconductor memory uses semiconductor-based integrated circuits to store information. A semiconductor memory chip may contain millions of tiny transistors or capacitors. Both volatile and non-volatile forms of semiconductor memory exist. In modern computers, primary storage almost exclusively consists of dynamic volatile semiconductor memory or dynamic random access memory. Since the turn of the century, a type of non-volatile semiconductor memory known as flash memory has steadily gained share as off-line storage for home computers. Removable flash memoryis solid-state, rewritable memory; it is non-volatile, so it retains data when the power is turned off. This explains its popularity in small devices.

Flash memory cardsare found in cameras, PDAs and music players.

Flash drives, also known asthumborpen drives, are connected to a USB port of the computer. They let you save and transfer data easily.

Magnetic storage uses different patterns of magnetization on a magnetically coated surface to store information. It is non-volatile. The information is accessed using one or more read/write heads which may contain one or more recording transducers. Adisk drivespins the disk at high speed and reads its data or writes new data onto it. Magnetic storage takes these forms:

• Floppy disk, used for off-line storage. A floppy disk drive uses 3.5 inch diskettes which can only hold 1.44 MB of data; it's often called A: drive and is relatively slow.

• Hard disk, used for secondary storage. Most PCs have one or two internal hard disks, usually called C: or D: drive, which can hold gigabytes of data. It's used to keep the operating system, the programs and the files easily available for use. When youformata disk, or prepare it for use, its surface is divided into concentric circles calledtracks. Each track is further divided into a number ofsectors. The computer remembers where information is stored by noting the track and sector numbers in adirectory.

A portable hard driveis an external unit with the drive mechanism and the media all in one sealed case. You can use it to make abackup, a spare copy of your files, or to transport data between computers. Magnetic tape data storage, used for tertiary and off-line storage. The average time required for the read/write heads to move and find data is called access time; it is measured in

milliseconds (ms). Don't confuse 'access time' with 'transfer rate', the rate of transmission of data from the disk to the CPU (e.g. 15 Mb per second).