Buying a computer.

Ex. 1. Read the descriptions of the four people and the four computers below. With a partner, choose the most suitable computer for each person. Give reasons for your choices.

1. Daniel is a history student. He needs a computer to write essays, assignments and letters. He likes surfing the web.

2. Sarah is the manager of an advertising company. She needs a powerful system which will work with optical disks and multimedia applications, integrating text and pictures with animation and voice annotations. Digitized images and sound occupy a lot of disk space.

3. Andy is a CAD engineer. His job involves computer-aided design, simulations and three-dimensional modelling. These applications require a lot of memory and a large drive.

4. Tanya is a sales representative. She needs a lightweight machine with which she can process orders and communicate with head office while she is on the road.

a) Sun workstation

• 900 MHz UltraSPARC processor

• Multiprocessor machine (expandable to two CPUs)

• 8-GB RAM capacity

• 72-GB internal hard drive

• DVD-ROM

• Supports several graphics formats

• Lets you attach any peripherals and link up to any network

• Allows you to handle your toughest technical, scientific, and business-critical applications

• Requires Solaris Operating system

• £5,049

b) Compaq Presario PC

• 500 MHz Pentium III processor

• 128 MB of RAM expandable to 384 MB

• 19 GB Quantum Bigfoot hard disk

• Built-in Zip drive

• DVD-ROM drive

• JBC speakers, Dolby Digital Surround Sound

• Integrated digital modem

• Windows

• £700

c) Compaq Evo Notebook N200

• Intel's 700 MHz Low Voltage Mobile Pentium III processor

• 192 MB RAM

• 20 GB hard drive

• Optional 1.44 MB diskette drive

• CD-RW, DVD-ROM

• 10.4" colour TFT display, with 1024 x 768 pixel resolution (16 million colours)

• Integrated keyboard, touch pad as pointing device

• Integrated mini-PCI modem

• Lithium-ion battery, with enough battery life for a workday

• Weight: 2.5 pounds

• Dimensions: 25.15 x 19.8x2.11 cm

• Windows comes pre-installed

• £. 1.190

d) Power Mac G4

• PowerPC processor at 933 MHz

• 256 MB of RAM expandable to 1.5 GB

• 2 MB of in-line cache on the processor card

• Graphics card with 64 MB of SDRAM

• 80 GB hard disk

• DVD-R and CD-RW Superdrive

• Comes with Apple monitor, sound board, built-in microphone, and stereo speakers

• Mac OS with QuickTime (an extension that lets you play video and animation on the computer), digital video editing and DVD authoring software

• £ 4,149

Ex. 2. Read the descriptions of these computers again and choose the one that is closest to your ideal. Explain the reason for your choice.

Ex. 3. A friend has written to you asking you to recommend a computer that suits his needs. Write a letter in reply, describing its technical features and saying why you recommend it.

UNIT 6

Input devices-1 reading material

T E X T A

Task

a) Read the definition of input devices.

Input devices are the pieces of hardware which allow you to enter information into the computer. The most common are the keyboard and the mouse. We can also interact with a computer by using one of these: a light pen, a scanner, a trackball, a graphics tablet, a joystick, a microphone, a webcam, a digital camera, a barcode reader, a touch screen, a touchpad.

b) Look at the list of input devices and say which one you would use for these tasks.

A light pen, a scanner, a joystick, a mouse, a graphics tablet, a barcode reader, a microphone, digital camera.

1. to play computer games;

2. to copy images from paper into a computer;

3. to read price labels in a shop;

4. to select text and click on links on web pages;

5. to enter drawings and sketches into a computer;

6. to input voice commands and dictate text;

7. to draw pictures or select menu options directly on the screen;

8. to take and store pictures and then download them to a computer.