Exam Time for IT. Ч.1. Практикум

Министерство транспорта Российской Федерации

Федеральное государственное автономное образовательное учреждение высшего образования «Российский университет транспорта»

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Кафедра «Русский и иностранные языки»

С. М. Исаева

EXAM TIME FOR IT

Часть 1

Практикум

для студентов специальностей

10.05.01«Компьютерная безопасность» и

27.03.04«Управление в технических системах»

Москва - 2021 1

УДК 42:004(76.5) И 85

Исаева С.М. Exam Time for IT. Часть 1: Практикум. – М.: РУТ (МИИТ), 2021. – 42 с.

Практикум предназначен для студентов компьютерных специальностей, обучающихся по направлению 10.05.01 «Компьютерная безопасность», специализация «Информационная безопасность объектов информатизации на базе компьютерных систем» и 27.03.04 «Управление в технических системах», профили «Автоматическое управление в транспортных системах», «Управление и информатика в технических системах», «Системы, методы и средства цифровизации и управления» и направлен на подготовку обучающихся к устной части экзамена по дисциплине «Иностранный язык».

© РУТ (МИИТ), 2021

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Topic 1. History of IT

The term «information technology» evolved in the 1970s.

The history of information technology, however, predates the invention of the modern digital computer by many centuries. Machines for calculating fixed numerical tasks, such as the abacus, have existed since antiquity. Wilhelm Schickard built the first mechanical calculator in 1623. Charles Babbage designed a difference engine in Victorian times, and around 1900 the IBM corporation sold punch-card machines. However all of these machines were constrained to perform a single task, or at best, some subset of all possible tasks.

During the 1940s, as newer and more powerful computing machines were developed, the term computer came to refer to the machines rather than their human predecessors. As it became clear that computers could be used for more than just mathematical calculations, the field of computer science broadened to study computation in general.

The basic concept of information technology, however, can be traced to the World War II alliance of the military and industry in the development of electronics, computers, and information theory. After the 1940s, the military remained the major source of research and development funding for the expansion of automation to replace manpower with machine power.

Since the 1950s, four generations of computers have evolved. Each generation reflected a change to hardware of decreased size but increased capabilities to control computer operations. The first generation used vacuum tubes, the second used transistors, the third used integrated circuits, and the fourth used integrated circuits on a single computer chip. Advances in artificial intelligence that will minimize the need for complex programming characterize the fifth generation of computers, still in the experimental stage.

The first commercial computer was the UNIVAC I, developed by John Eckert and John W. Mauchly in 1951. It was used by the Census Bureau to predict the outcome of the 1952 presidential election. For the next twenty-five years, mainframe computers were used in large corporations to do calculations and manipulate large amounts of information stored in databases . Supercomputers were used in science and engineering for designing aircraft and nuclear reactors and for predicting worldwide weather patterns. Minicomputers came on to the scene in the early 1980s in small businesses, manufacturing plants, and factories.

In 1975 the Massachusetts Institute of Technology developed microcomputers. In 1976

Tandy Corporation’s first Radio Shack microcomputer followed; the Apple microcomputer was introduced in 1977. The market for microcomputers increased dramatically when IBM introduced the first personal computer in the fall of 1981. Because of dramatic improvements in computer components and manufacturing, personal computers today do more than the largest computers of the last century at about a thousandth of the cost.

The history of information technology can be divided into four broad eras: the experimental era, the hardware era, the software era, and the communications era.

Experimental Era: 1945-1960.

The first computer, built in 1945, was the EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer). A number of experimental machines and new technological developments led to the release of the IBM 1401 for the business user and the IBM 1620 for the scientist in 1959. The 1401 became a popular data processing machine for business, and the 1620 provided the first computer experience for many students in universities and colleges.

Hardware Era: 1960-1985.

During this era, the driving force was the need to develop more powerful mainframe computers that could be applied to larger and more difficult problems. The major computer companies were IBM and the BUNCH (Burroughs, Univac, NCR, Control Data, and Honeywell). Operating systems were usually provided with the computer and were unique to each brand. Application programs were frequently custom-built by each customer. There were some software companies that sold software packages for common applications, such as

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accounting. This era came to a close after the introduction of the IBM Personal Computer in 1981.

Software Era: 1985-1995.

The personal computer changed the competitive environment in the industry. The owners of personal computers could not build their own software and had to rely on purchased applications. This opened up a large new market for software. Hardware improvements continued, but the new players were Intel and Motorola, the makers of microcomputer chips. The BUNCH were absorbed by various mergers and by 1990, even IBM was having difficulty. The important companies that everyone followed were usually software companies like Microsoft, WordPerfect, Lotus, and Borland. By the mid 1980’s there were dozens of different word processors for sale.

Toward the end of this era most of the competitors were eliminated, sometimes very rapidly. Novell purchased WordPerfect for $2.5 billion and resold it to Corel two years later for $250 million. In another two years, Corel wrote off the whole investment. Customers showed a preference for common standards and were unwilling to buy software from anyone that was not an industry leader.

Communications Era: 1995-Present.

The development of the World Wide Web in 1994 ushered in a new era of communications. In just a few years it has created a new paradigm for information exchange. We now see a new scramble of startup companies, mergers, and expansions as telephone companies, cable companies, entertainment companies, and new Internet service providers jockey for position. We can expect this to continue for several years before the dust settles on some new arrangement of service providers. We will still see new innovations in hardware and software, but the most exciting developments will likely revolve around the communications area.

Questions for self-check:

When did the term «information technology» evolve?

Did the history of information technology begin with the invention of a computer?

What made the field of computer science broaden to study computation in general?

How did the World War II influence information technology development?

How many generations of computers are known to have evolved since the 1950s? How did they differ?

What are John Eckert and John W. Mauchly famous for?

What were mainframe computers and supercomputers used for?

When did minicomputers come on to the scene? What were the spheres of their application?

When did microcomputers appear?

How many eras of IT history are there?

Exercises:

1. Give Russian equivalents of the following words and expressions:

manpower; constrain; amount; outcome; nuclear reactor; perform a task; source; abacus; vacuum tube; broaden; improvement; capabilities; predate; weather

pattern; mainframe; trace; aircraft; artificial intelligence; predict; antiquity; subset; integrated circuit; decrease; advance.

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2. Translate these words and word combinations into English:

древность; выполнить задание; вакуумный прибор; механический вычислитель; основной источник; восходить (к); прогресс, достижение; возможности; прогнозировать; счеты; улучшение, усовершенствование; количество; ограничивать; счётно-перфорационная машина; расширять(ся); интегральная микросхема; тип погоды; результат; предшествовать; ядерный реактор.

3. Name the era each of the sentences refers to:

1.During this era, the driving force was the need to develop more powerful mainframe computers that could be applied to larger and more difficult problems.

2.Toward the end of this era most of the competitors were eliminated, sometimes very rapidly, as customers showed a preference for common standards and were unwilling to buy software from anyone that was not an industry leader.

3.Operating systems were usually provided with the computer and were unique to each brand. Application programs were frequently custom-built by each customer.

4.A number of experimental machines and new technological developments led to the release of the IBM 1401 for the business user and the IBM 1620 for the scientist in 1959, and the 1620 provided the first computer experience for many students in universities and colleges.

5.This era came to a close after the introduction of the IBM Personal Computer in 1981.

6.In just a few years it has created a new paradigm for information exchange, caused by the development of the World Wide Web in 1994.

7.The BUNCH were absorbed by various mergers and by 1990, even IBM was having difficulty, whereas the important companies that everyone followed were usually software companies like Microsoft, WordPerfect, Lotus, and Borland.

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Topic 2. The Internet

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that interchange data by packet switching using the standardized Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP). It is a «network of networks» that consists of millions of private and public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope that are linked by copper wires, fiber-optic cables, wireless connections, and other technologies.

The Internet carries various information resources and services, such as electronic mail, online chat, file transfer and file sharing, online gaming, and the inter-linked hypertext documents and other resources of the World Wide Web (WWW).

Internet Protocols.

The complex communications infrastructure of the Internet consists of its hardware components and a system of software layers that control various aspects of the architecture. While the hardware can often be used to support other software systems, it is the design and the rigorous standardization process of the software architecture that characterizes the Internet.

The responsibility for the architectural design of the Internet software systems has been delegated to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). The IETF conducts standard-setting work groups, open to any individual, about the various aspects of Internet architecture. Resulting discussions and final standards are published in Request for Comments (RFCs), freely available on the IETF web site.

The principal methods of networking that enable the Internet are contained in a series of RFCs that constitute the Internet Standards. These standards describe a system known as the Internet Protocol Suite. This is a model architecture that divides methods into a layered system of protocols (RFC 1122, RFC 1123). The layers correspond to the environment or scope in which their services operate. At the top is the space (Application Layer) of the software application, e.g., a web browser application, and just below it is the Transport Layer which connects applications on different hosts via the network (e.g., client-server model). The underlying network consists of two layers: the Internet Layer which enables computers to connect to one-another via intermediate (transit) networks and thus is the layer that establishes internetworking and the Internet, and lastly, at the bottom, is a software layer that provides connectivity between hosts on the same local link (therefor called Link Layer), e.g., a local area network (LAN) or a dial-up connection. This model is also known as the TCP/IP model of networking. While other models have been developed, such as the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model, they are not compatible in the details of description, nor implementation.

The most prominent component of the Internet model is the Internet Protocol (IP) which provides addressing systems for computers on the Internet and facilitates the internetworking of networks. IP Version 4 (IPv4) is the initial version used on the first generation of the today’s Internet and is still in dominant use. It was designed to address up to —4.3 billion (109) Internet hosts. However, the explosive growth of the Internet has led to IPv4 address exhaustion. A new protocol version, IPv6, was developed which provides vastly larger addressing capabilities and more efficient routing of data traffic. IPv6 is currently in commercial deployment phase around the world.

IPv6 is not interoperable with IPv4. It essentially establishes a «parallel» version of the Internet not accessible with IPv4 software. This means software upgrades are necessary for every networking device that needs to communicate on the IPv6 Internet. Most modern computer operating systems are already converted to operate with both version of the Internet Protocol. Network infrastructures, however, are still lagging in this development.

Internet Structure.

There have been many analyses of the Internet and its structure. For example, it has been determined that the Internet IP routing structure and hypertext links of the World Wide Web are

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examples of scale-free networks. Similar to the way the commercial Internet providers connect via Internet exchange points, research networks tend to interconnect into large subnetworks such as the following: GEANT, GLORIAD, The Internet2 Network (formally known as the Abilene

Network), JANET (the UK’s national research and education network).

These in turn are built around relatively smaller networks. In network diagrams, the Internet is often represented by a cloud symbol, into and out of which network communications can pass.

Internet Access.

Common methods of home access include dial-up, landline broadband (over coaxial cable, fiber optic or copper wires), Wi-Fi, satellite and 3G technology cell phones. Public places to use the Internet include libraries and Internet cafes, where computers with Internet connections are available.

There are also Internet access points in many public places such as airport halls and coffee shops, in some cases just for brief use while standing. Various terms are used, such as «public Internet kiosk», «public access terminal», and «Web payphone». Many hotels now also have public terminals, though these are usually fee-based. These terminals are widely accessed for various usages like ticket booking, bank deposit, online payment etc. Wi-Fi provides wireless access to computer networks, and therefore can do so to the Internet itself. Hotspots providing such access include Wi-Fi cafes, where would-be users need to bring their own wireless-enabled devices such as a laptop or PDA. These services may be free to all, free to customers only, or fee-based. A hotspot need not be limited to a confined location. A whole campus or park, or even an entire city can be enabled. Grassroots efforts have led to wireless community networks. Commercial Wi-Fi services covering large city areas are in place in London, Vienna, Toronto, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Chicago and Pittsburgh. The Internet can then be accessed from such places as a park bench.

Apart from Wi-Fi, there have been experiments with proprietary mobile wireless networks like Ricochet, various high-speed data services over cellular phone networks, and fixed wireless services. High-end mobile phones such as smartphones generally come with Internet access through the phone network. Web browsers such as Opera are available on these advanced handsets, which can also run a wide variety of other Internet software. More mobile phones have Internet access than PCs. An Internet access provider and protocol matrix differentiates the methods used to get online.

Terminology.

The terms «Internet» and «World Wide Web» are often used in every-day speech without much distinction. However, the Internet and the World Wide Web are not one and the same. The Internet is the backbone of the World Wide Web. It is the underlying global data communications system, i.e., the hardware and software infrastructure. It provides connectivity between the Internet-based resources and services and the users of those facilities.

In contrast, the Web is only one of the services communicated via the Internet. The World Wide Web is a huge set of interlinked documents, images and other resources, linked by hyperlinks and URLs. These hyperlinks and URLs allow the web servers and other machines that store originals, and cached copies of these resources to deliver them as required using HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol). HTTP is only one of the communication protocols used on the Internet.

Web services also use HTTP to allow software systems to communicate in order to share and exchange business logic and data.

Software products that can access the resources of the Web are correctly termed as user agents. In normal use, web browsers, such as Internet Explorer and Firefox, access web pages and allow users to navigate from one to another via hyperlinks. Web documents may contain almost any combination of computer data including graphics, sounds, text, video, multimedia and interactive content including games, office applications and scientific demonstrations.

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Through keyword-driven Internet research using search engines like Yahoo! and Google, millions of people worldwide have easy, instant access to a vast and diverse amount of online information. Compared to encyclopedias and traditional libraries, the World Wide Web has enabled a sudden and extreme decentralization of information and data. Using the Web, it is also easier than ever before for individuals and organizations to publish ideas and information to an extremely large audience. Anyone can find ways to publish a web page, a blog or build a website for very little initial cost. Publishing and maintaining large, professional websites full of attractive, diverse and up-to-date information is still a difficult and expensive proposition.

Many individuals and some companies and groups use «web logs» or blogs, which are largely used as easily updatable online diaries. Some commercial organizations encourage staff to fill them with advice on their areas of specialization in the hope that visitors will be impressed by the expert knowledge and free information, and be attracted to the corporation as a result. One example of this practice is Microsoft, whose product developers publish their personal blogs in order to pique the public’s interest in their work.

Collections of personal web pages published by large service providers remain popular, and have become increasingly sophisticated. Whereas operations such as Angelfire and GeoCities have existed since the early days of the Web, newer offerings from, for example, Facebook and MySpace currently have large followings. These operations often brand themselves as social network services rather than simply as web page hosts.

Advertising on popular web pages can be lucrative, and e-commerce or the sale of products and services directly via the Web continues to grow.

In the early days web pages were usually created as sets of complete and isolated HTML text files stored on a web server. More recently, websites are more often created using content management system (CMS) or wiki software with, initially, very little content. Contributors to these systems, who may be paid staff, members of a club or other organisation or members of the public, fill underlying databases with content using editing pages designed for that purpose, while casual visitors view and read this content in its final HTML form. There may or may not be editorial, approval and security systems built into the process of taking newly entered content and making it available to the target visitors.

Complex Architecture.

Many computer scientists see the Internet as a «prime example of a large-scale, highly engineered, yet highly complex system». The Internet is extremely heterogeneous. (For instance, data transfer rates and physical characteristics of connections vary widely.) The Internet exhibits «emergent phenomena» that depend on its large-scale organization. For example, data transfer rates exhibit temporal self-similarity. Further adding to the complexity of the Internet is the ability of more than one computer to use the Internet through only one node, thus creating the possibility for a very deep and hierarchal sub-network that can theoretically be extended infinitely (disregarding the programmatic limitations of the IPv4 protocol). However, since principles of this architecture date back to the 1960s, it might not be a solution best suited to modern needs, and thus the possibility of developing alternative structures is currently being looked into.

Questions for self-check:

What does the Internet consist of?

How is the Internet designed?

Where are the Internet Standards fixed?

What does the TCP/IP model of networking represent?

Which component is the most prominent of the Internet model? Why?

What are the ways of the Internet access realization?

How do the terms «Internet» and «World Wide Web» differ?

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Exercises:

1. Give Russian equivalents of the following words and expressions:

hyperlink; dial-up connection; landline; payphone; grassroots;

diary; prominent; rigorous; diverse; lucrative; lag; navigate; encourage; pique

2. Translate these words and word combinations into English:

наземная линия связи; разнообразный; передвигаться, двигаться; строгий, точный; содействовать, стимулировать; таксофон; прибыльный, рентабельный; запаздывать, отставать; вызывать, возбуждать (любопытство); регистрационный журнал, ежедневник; основа, «корень»; знаменитый, известный; гиперссылка; соединение по телефонной линии.

3.Find the word alien to the given synonymic group among the words and word combinations from the previous exercise, giving your reasons:

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