2. Analyze grammar in the underlined words and word combinations (in writing).

2. Make up 5 questions of different types to the text (in writing). Text 15

1. Read and translate the text in writing.

A bus line - or simply bus - connects the parts of the CPU to each other. It also links the CPU with other important hardware. Examples are RAM and ROM chips and ports connecting with outside devices. A bus is a data roadway along which bits travel. Such data pathways resemble a multilane highway. The more lanes there are, the faster traffic can go through. Similarly, the greater the capacity of a bus, the more powerful and faster the operation. A 64-bit bus has greater capacity than a 32-bit bus, for example.

Why should you even have to care about what a bus line is? The answer is that, as microprocessor chips have changed, so have bus lines. Many devices, such as expansion boards, will only work with one type of bus line.

The four principal bus lines (or "architectures") are the following:

• Industry Standard Architecture (ISA): This bus was developed for the IBM Personal Computer. First it was an 8-bit-wide data path, then (when the IBM AT was intro­duced) it was 16 bits wide. The older microprocessors and add-on expansion boards were able to satisfactorily move data along this 16-bit roadway. But then along came the 386 chip - which requires data paths that are 32 bits wide. And suddenly there was a competition between two 32-bit standards.

• Micro Channel Architecture (MCA): IBM decided to support the 386 chip with a 32-bit bus line that was entirely new. You cannot simply remove your expansion boards from an older computer and put them into a new IBM computer with Micro Channel. It simply won't work. If you are not concerned about transfer­ring boards, IBM's new standard is not a problem. You can take full advantage of the faster processor.

• Extended Industry Standard Architecture (EISA): This 32-bit bus standard was proposed in September 1988 by nine manufacturers of IBM-compatibles, led by Compaq Computer Corporation. The purpose of EISA is to extend and amend the old ISA standard, so that all existing expansion boards can work with the new archi­tecture.

2. Analyze grammar in the underlined words and word combinations (in writing).

2. Make up 5 questions of different types to the text (in writing). Text 16

1. Read and translate the text in writing.

Remote access

The Internet allows computer users to connect to other computers and information stores easily, wherever they may be across the world. They may do this with or without the use of security, authentication and encryption technologies, depending on the requirements.

This is encouraging new ways of working from home, collaboration and information sharing in many industries. An accountant sitting at home can audit the books of a company based in another country, on a server situated in a third country that is remotely maintained by IT specialists in a fourth. These accounts could have been created by home-working book-keepers, in other remote locations, based on information e-mailed to them from offices all over the world. Some of these things were possible before the widespread use of the Internet, but the cost of private, leased lines would have made many of them infeasible in practice.

An office worker away from his desk, perhaps the other side of the world on a business trip or a holiday, can open a remote desktop session into their normal office PC using a secure Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection via the Internet. This gives the worker complete access to all of their normal files and data, including e-mail and other applications, while away from the office.

This concept is also referred to by some network security people as the Virtual Private Nightmare, because it extends the secure perimeter of a corporate network into its employees' homes; this has been the source of some notable security breaches, but also provides security for the workers.

Internet 'chat', whether in the form of IRC 'chat rooms' or channels, or via instant messaging systems allow colleagues to stay in touch in a very convenient way when working at their computers during the day. Messages can be sent and viewed even more quickly and conveniently than via e-mail.