Taking Сomputer for Granted. Учебное пособие

UNIT 5

These data are in sharp contrast to the $538 in working capital that founders Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard began with in 1938.

David Packard died on March 26, 1996; Bill Hewlett died on January 12, 2001.

Initial public stock offering raised on Nov.18, 1999 up to $2,1 billion and broke records at the largest IPO ( Initial Public Offering) in Silicon Valley history. In this year HP announced strategic realignment to create an independent measurement company composed of test and measurement components, chemical analysis and medical businesses (the name of it is Agilent Technologies), and a computing and imaging company that includes all of HP’s computing, printing and imaging businesses (named HP).

Let’s discuss

Be so kind as to answer the following questions.

1.Why do you think the project of IBM PC was «hush-hush» and why the company decided to make its own computer line?

2.What made the IBM PC different from the previous computers?

3.Can you characterize Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard?

4.How were they acquainted and what were their first steps?

5.What event stimulated almost from the very beginning fast development of the HP?

6.What was the main tradition of the HP. Why?

7.How can you explain the successful and extremely fast development of the HP?

8.Why did the HP announce in 1999 strategic realignment to create an independent company?

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5. Relax a bit

A

Do you know where to put quotation marks?

1

Teacher: A preposition is not a good word to end a sentence with.

Student: You have just ended the sentence with with!

Teacher: But do you know what did I end the sentence with with for?

Student: No, and I also do not know what you ended that one with with with for for!

2

The teacher said that that that that was written on the blackboard was written wrong.

Life is what happens when you are making other plans.

J. Lennon

Happiness is the only thing we can give without having. Experience is the name everyone gives to his mistakes.

Oscar Wild.

Experience is not what happens to you; it is what you do with what happens to you.

Huxley

152

Tech. Support: Sir, all computers have power buttons. Look at the front of the case, find the word «power», and push the button.

Customer: YOU FIXED IT! Thanks!!!

Tech. Support: What happens when you turn the computer on? Customer: The screen just stays black.

Tech. Support: Is the computer plugged in?

Customer: I took it to a repair shop last week, and they apparently fixed it, so it doesn’t need a power cord anymore.

Tech. Support: Is the computer a laptop computer?

Customer: No, but they never gave me back the power cord, so they must have fixed it, so it didn’t need it.

Tech. Support: Go back to the repair store and get your power cord back. They just forgot to give it to you.

Tech. Support: Ok sir, let’s press the ctrl and esc keys at the same time. That brings up a task list in the middle of

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the screen. Now type the letter ‘P’ to bring up the ‘Program Manager’.

Customer: I don’t have a ‘P’. Tech. Support: On your keyboard, sir. Customer: What do you mean?

Tech. Support: ‘P’ on your keyboard, sir. Customer: I’m not going to do that!!!

Tech. Support: You need to pick a password. It should contain a combination of numbers, symbols, and upper and lowercase letters.

Customer: Upper and lowercase? I don’t understand. Tech. Support: You know, big letters and little letters.

Customer: Oh, of course! But I have to say, you must avoid that technical language with me!

B

Life experience Inflation

Inflation has caused stores to adapt as well as consumers. Signs that used to read «Watch Your Children» now read «Watch Your Language».

Cooking

Ann confessed to her friend: My cooking left my husband cold.

-He divorced you?

-No, he died.

Dreams

1

Two friends were sitting in a bar and recounting their dreams. «I dreamed I was with my fishing road … beautiful lake, lush scenery …».

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«I had a great dream too», said the other. «I dreamed I was with two beautiful women and had the time of my life».

His friend looked at him and asked indignantly, «You dreamed you had two pretty girls and you didn’t call me?!» «Oh, I did, «answered the other», but your wife said you had gone fishing».

3

«Doc», said the young man, «you have got to help me! Every night I have the same terrible dream. I’m lying in bed when the door opens and three beauties come in and start tearing off my blanket».

–And what do you do?

–I’m pushing them away.

–How can I help you?

–Break my arms!!!

Infidelity

Two business colleagues were walking down the street when one of them turned to the other, looking very distressed. «Gee», he said, «here comes my wife and my mistress together». «Ohmigod», said the other, «mine too».

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Quotation marks, answers

2

The teacher said that that «that» that was written on the blackboard was written wrong.

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UNIT 6

Unit 6

1. Information for study

Software development

If builders built buildings the way the programmers wrote programs, the first woodpecker to come along would destroy civilization.

In the beginning, computers used numbers as the primary form of input data. Later with the development of hardware and software the definition of data was expanded. Now users can input not only numerical but also textual (letters and special characters), audiovisual (music, video, voice, pictures), and physical (light, sound, temperature, pressure) data.

Although a modern computer is capable of accepting many types of input, it can only operate on digitally formatted data, just as original computers did. Hence software must be created to interface the computer with the various types of input data. Because a computer runs on electricity, data must be stored as a series of on and off patterns.

Computer circuits can be in only one of two states: either on (represented by 1) or off (represented by 0). Each numeric value is known as a binary digit (bit) and unique combinations of those two bits, are what binary code, or machine language, is called. Different patterns in binary code could then be used to represent various input characters. Once data has been converted to binary form, computers would then apply a software program (applications or apps) to the digital input data, sequentially execute the instructions, and successfully process it into information.

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Engineers quickly realized that writing in binary code (machine language) was extremely difficult and time consuming. Writing software programs in numerical (or digital) format was an immense task for anyone. Therefore, it was necessary to develop software into a more user-friendly format.

As programmers developed existing code, new computer capabilities were noticed and the demand for even more advanced software increased. It inspired programmers to develop more software.

The early days of computing were restricted to scientific and engineering applications, but after the once-imagined possibilities became realities, the general public’s appetite for computer accessibility and capability began to skyrocket. Thousands of new programs were being written as swiftly as possible and yet the demand continued to increase. Of the thousands of programs available, software types typically fall into 2 categories: system software and application software.

System software controls various internal computer activities. Any software that controls such activities will fall into one of three categories: programming language, operating system, and utility software.

Programming languages are the various methods of writing computer instructions. The instructions adhere to a particular set of protocols for each language. Through the years, more than 200 languages have been developed, some of which are quite specialized. Some of the most popular languages include BASIC, COBOL, Pascal, C, C++, Visual Basic, and FORTRAN. But regardless of which language a program was written in, a computer can only process binary code. Therefore, each language must eventually be converted back to binary code before any instructions can be followed.

The first generation of computer languages was machine language. Machine language was difficult to use It was time consuming and filled with errors.

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The second generation of computer language, assembly language, was developed in the 1950s and reduced the complexity of program-authoring by using symbols instead of 0’s and 1’s. However, each computer or family of computers had its own assembly language which prevented the software of one computer model from being used on a different computer model. Although programming became easier to write, it remained idiosyncratic with its lack of portability.

Third generation languages, called high-level languages, were developed for two reasons: oneso programmers could work on different computers without having to learn a new assembly language each time, and software written on one computer could be used on another. A compiler (program translator) was used to help solve these problems by translating a program into machine language and checking the program for syntax errors (spelling or grammar mistakes unique to a specific language). The advent of the compiler greatly reduced the programmer’s burden of memorizing specific code for each machine.

Fourth generation languages, called very high-level languages, use a similar language translator (called interpreters) but require fewer lines of code because they rely on objects of code that are reusable. These predefined objects have numerous strengths such as portability, easy structuring, and simplified development but also make the languages less flexible.

Until 1970, IBM bundled its software with its computers, selling the hardware along with the software needed to run it. In 1970, IBM began charging a separate fee for its software, thus opening a market for independent software developers to write programs that would run on IBM machines. By the time the first personal computer (PC), called the Altair, hit the market in the 1975, there were many well-developed computer languages and competent programmers available to write software for the new industry. Micro

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Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems, Inc., the manufacturers of the Altair, introduced an operating system that was a version of Beginner’s All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code (BASIC), written by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, and enabled Altair owners to write their own programs.

The operating system (OS) is a group of system programs that help in the operation of a computer by telling the computer how to interpret commands, process the inputs and outputs, and manage data. The OS is automatically loaded when the PC is started and can activate other programs.

By far the most common OS for PC’s is the Disk Operating System (DOS). Windows 98, Me, NT, 2000 etc and AT&T’s UNIX are other examples of popular operating systems.

Operating systems have become larger and more sophisticated in response to the capabilities of new hardware and other software. But in the early 1980s, just before IBM introduced its first PC, the dominant OS was the Control Program for Microprocessors (CP / M), developed by Gary Kildall in 1973 for Intel Corporation . In 1974, Kildall founded Digital Research, Inc. and sold CP / M by mail order. CP / M was the first OS that would run on PCs made by different manufacturers, and it had the largest number of programs for data and word processing and calculations. But IBM chose DOS as its operating system, and when its open-architecture PC hit the market, programmers jumped at the chance to write application software for it. Although it was a powerful operating system, in 1983 CP / M was on only four percent of the PCs and few software developers supported it, preferring to write for the growing DOS-based market.

Utility software expands the performance of the operating system by adding functions that are not part of the original OS. Utilities perform troubleshooting jobs, inspecting diskettes for damage, file conversion, defragmenting, data compression, and

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