I. Put the following sentences into interrogative and negative forms:

a) Computers have many remarkable powers.

b) Second generation computers had transistors instead of vacuum tubes.

II. Insert the correct personal forms of the verb to have:

1. He … a laboratory class in the computer class yesterday.

2. The introduction of terminals and screens … partly replaced the use of punched cards.

3. The first computers … thousands of separate electrical components connected together with wires.

4. Programs are not hardware as they … no electrical or mechanical components.

5. The students … a seminar on informatics in two days.

6. Most computers, whether large or small … three basic capabilities.

III. Ask as many special questions as you can:

1. Computers have circuits for performing arithmetic operations, such as addition, subtraction, division, multiplication and exponentiation.

2. Integrated circuits of third generation computers had about 200 components on a single chip.

3. By the 1960s semiconductors had replaced vacuum tubes.

IV. State the function of the verb to have in the following sentences:

1. Not all computers have the same type of memory.

2. Second generation computers were smaller than first generation ones.

3. The programmer has to write instructions.

4. Step-by-step (пошаговый) procedures had to be specified in detail.

5. Early computers had a capacity of around 80,000 bits.

6. The integrated circuitry of a microcomputer has been reduced to a chip.

V. Say in English:

1. Центральный процессор имеет связь со всеми блоками компьютера.

2. Сколько раз в неделю у вас занятия в компьютерном классе?

3. У тебя много книг по информатике?

4. Вчера у нас не было семинара.

5. У этого компьютера два дисковода.

6. Сколько дисководов у этого компьютера?

7. У нас двадцать компьютеров с цветными мониторами.

Section CReading

I. Study the following words and word combinations and make sure you know their translations. Use a specialized dictionary in case of any difficulties.

valve

vacuum tube

cog

lever

chip

glowing filament

alternating current

direct current

to amplify

integrated circuit

II. State the type of word-building of the following words and translate them into Russian.

invention, pressure, microchip, development, unreliable, impossible, semiconductor

III. Computers were devised thanks to the development of the devices that produce and process electrical signals. Put the following devices in the order of their chronological invention. Look through the text to prove your order.

integrated circuit; cog; semiconductor; electronic valve; transistor; vacuum tube; microchip

IV. Skim paragraph 4 and name two main discoveries in the field of modern computers.

V. Read the text attentively and make a list of people who contributed greatly to the development of computers.

5 10 15 20 25 30

Electronic computers The electronic computer, like many inventions, was called in by the pressure of war. It was built on Babbage’s principles but used electronic valves or vacuum tubes instead of cogs and levers. The first computer, called colossus, was built in Britain in 1943 to break German codes. Colossus was in fact only used for code-cracking, and the first general-purpose computer was ENIAC, an American machine completed in 1946. ENIAC was hot and huge, with 19,000 valves. Computers only got smaller with the invention of the transistors and the microchip. Diodes, transistors and microchips Electronics really goes back to the turn of the century, when the first devices that could produce and process electric signals were invented. There were electronic valves or vacuum tubes in which a beam of electrons produced by a glowing filament carried a current between electrodes. The diode valve came first, invented by the British scientist John Ambrose Fleming in 1904, followed in America by Lee de Forest’s three-electrode mode valve in 1906. The diode changed alternating current to a direct-current signal, and the mode amplified a signal. These valves were crucial to the development of radio and television, and sound recording. However, valves were large and unreliable as the filament sooner or later burned out, making the development of small electronic machines impossible. The solution was found in 1948 by American scientists William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain, who worked at the Bell Telephone Laboratories. Their research led to two great discoveries in the field of electronic – the semiconductor diode and transistors. Pieces of semiconductor replaced the filament and electrodes, and made electronic components small and fully reliable. The next important development was to fabricate several components in a single piece of semiconductor – the integrated circuit. This was invented by the American engineer Jack Kilby in 1958 and it led to the microchip, into which many thousands of components are packed. The first microchip was produced in 1970.