Твердий диск

Тверди́й диск, також вінчестер, жорсткий диск – постійний запам'ятовуючий пристрій ЕОМ. Постійний, означає, що на відміну від оперативної пам'яті, продовжує зберігати дані після вимикання струму.

Перші тверді диски з`явилися на початку 70-х років. Вони мали ємність не більше десятка кілобайтів. У 1973 році фірма IBM випустила жорсткий диск моделі 3340, що вперше об'єднав в одному нероз'ємному корпусі пластини диска й голівки, що зчитують. При його розробці інженери використали коротку внутрішню назву "30-30", що означало два модулі (у максимальному компонуванні) по 30 Мб кожний. Кеннет Хотон, керівник проекту, через співзвучність назви з позначенням популярної мисливської рушниці "Winchester 30-30" запропонував назвати цей диск "вінчестером".

З часом ємність твердого диску виросла в тисячі разів, хоча його будова не дуже змінилась.

Конструкція

Кожен твердий диск складається з трьох блоків.

∙Перший блок. На першому блоці зберігається вся інформація. 1-й блок представляє з себе один або декілька скляних або алюмінієвих дисків, вкритих з двох сторін магнітним шаром, на який записується інформація.

∙Другий блок — механіка твердого диску. Другий блок забезпечує обертання першого блоку (тобто самих дисків) і точне позиціонування головок зчитування.

∙Третій блок— електронна логіка твердого диску.

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Unit 10

Text A

I. Read and translate the following text. Give a brief history of the beginning of computers development. Present it in a written form. Answer the questions below the text.

The first hackers

The first „hackers” were students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) who belonged to the TMRC (Tech Model Railroad Club). Some of the members really built model trains. But many were more interested in the wires and circuits underneath the track platform. Spending hours at TMRC creating better circuitry was called „a mere hack”. Those members who were interested in creating innovative, stylistic, and technically clever circuits called themselves (with pride) hackers.

During the spring of 1959, a new course was offered at MIT, a freshman programming class. Soon the hackers of the railroad club were spending days, hours and nights hacking away at their computer, an IBM 704. Instead of creating a better circuit, their hack became creating faster, more efficient program – with the least number of lines of code. Eventually they formed a group and created the first set of hacker’s rules, called the Hacker’s Ethic.

Steven Levy, in his book Hackers, presented the rules:

Rule 1: Access to computer – and anything, which might teach you, something about the way the world works – should be unlimited and total.

Rule 2: All information should be free.

Rule 3: Mistrust authority – promote decentralization.

Rule 4: Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not bogus criteria such as degrees, race, or position.

Rule 5: You can create art and beauty on the computer.

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Rule 6: Computer can change your life for the better.

These rules made programming at MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory a challenging, all encompassing endeavour. Just for the exhilaration of programming, students in the AI Lab would write a new program to perform even the smallest tasks with fewer instructions. The act of making the computer work more elegantly was, to a hacker, awe-inspiring.

Hackers were given free reign on the computer by two AI Lab professors, „Uncle” John McCarthy and Marvin Minsky, who realized that hacking created new insights. Over the years, the AI Lab created many innovations: LIFE, a game about survival; LISP, a new kind of programming language; the first computer chess game; The CAVE, the first computer adventure; and SPACEWAR, the first video game.

(to be continued)

1.Who were the first „hackers”?

2.What were they interested in?

3.Why did they proudly call themselves „hackers”?

4.Who presented Hacker’s Ethic in his book?

5.Who realized that hacking created new insights?

6.Name innovations, the AI Lab created over the years.

II. Read and translate the text. Put all types of questions to the underlined sentences.

Text B

Liquid crystal displays

Liquid crystals were first discovered in the late 19th century by the Austrian botanist, Friedrich Reinitzer, and the term "liquid crystal" itself was coined shortly afterwards by German physicist, Otto Lehmann.

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Liquid crystals are almost transparent substances, exhibiting the properties of both solid and liquid matter. Light passing through liquid crystals follows the alignment of the molecules that make them up - a property of solid matter. In the 1960s it was discovered that charging liquid crystals with electricity changed their molecular alignment, and consequently the way light passed through them; a property of liquids.

Since its advent in 1971 as a display medium, liquid crystal displays have moved into a variety of fields, including miniature televisions, digital still and video cameras and monitors and today many believe that the LCD is the most likely technology to replace the CRT monitor. The technology involved has been developed considerably since its inception, to the point where today's products no longer resemble the clumsy, monochrome devices of old. It has a head start over other flat screen technologies and an apparently unassailable position in notebook and handheld PCs where it is available in two forms:

low-cost, dual-scan twisted nematic (DSTN) high image quality thin film transistor (TFT).

III. Read and translate the following sentences. Define the tense and voice of the Predicates.

1. LCD is a transmissive technology. 2. The display works by letting varying amounts of a fixed-intensity white backlight through an active filter. 3. The red, green and blue elements of a pixel are achieved through simple filtering of the white light. 4. Most liquid crystals are organic compounds consisting of long rod-like molecules which, in their natural state, arrange themselves with their long axes roughly parallel. 5. It is possible to precisely control the alignment of these molecules by flowing the liquid crystal along a finely grooved surface. 6. The alignment of the molecules follows the grooves, so if

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the grooves are exactly parallel, then the alignment of the molecules also becomes exactly parallel.

IV. Ask questions to which the following sentences would be the answers.

1. The first principle of an LCD consists of sandwiching liquid crystals between two finely grooved surfaces. 2. The grooves on one surface are perpendicular (at 90 degrees) to the grooves on the other. 3. The second principle of an LCD relies on the properties of polarising filters and light itself. 4. Natural light waves are orientated at random angles. 5. A polarising filter is simply a set of incredibly fine parallel lines. 6. A typical twisted nematic (TN) liquid crystal display consists of two polarising filters with their lines arranged perpendicular (at 90 degrees) to each other. 7. But in-between these polarisers are the twisted liquid crystals. 8. Therefore light is polarised by the first filter, twisted through 90 degrees by the liquid crystals, finally allowing it to completely pass through the second polarising filter. 9. When an electrical voltage is applied across the liquid crystal, the molecules realign vertically, allowing the light to pass through untwisted but to be blocked by the second polariser. 10. No voltage equals light passing through, while applied voltage equals no light emerging at the other end.

V. Put the words into the right order.

Liquid, in, late, crystals, discovered, 19th, were, the, first, century.

Liquid, substances, are, transparent, crystals, almost. Alignment, liquid, charging, with, changed, crystals, molecular, electricity, their.

Moved, crystal, into, variety, liquid, have, fields, a, displays, of.

Likely, to, the, monitor, the, is, technology, replace, LCD, the, CRT, most.

VI. Read and translate the text. Define the Predicates and explain their usage. Try to annotate the text in Ukrainian.

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