2020-10-12
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Kiev (or Kyiv) is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The name Kiev is derived from the name of Kiy, one of four legendary founders of the city.
By the ancient legend Kiev was founded by three brothers Kiy, Schek, Khoriv and their sister Lybid. They were surprised by the beauty of Dnieper’s hills, stopped to settle here and called the town in honour of the eldest brother-Kiev. A monument to the founders was erected at the Dnieper embankment in our days. The town’s place was chosen succesfully, the high Dnieper’s slopes were perfect protection against the raids of nomad tribes.
Kiev stretches for the space of more than 20 km along the picturesque banks of the biggest Ukrainian river — Dnieper. Its square consists 827 sq.km. The population of Kiev is about 3 millions people.
Kiev is one of the oldest Slavic centres, “Mother of Russian touns” so it was called in olden times, its age is more than 1500 years. The first settlements on the territory of modern Kiev appeared from 15000 till 20000 year ago.
During the time of Vladimir the Great (980-1015) government our city begins to develop especially rapidly. In order to consolidate Kiev Russ and to increase its international influence the prince Vladimir baptised the Russ in 988. Christianity and became that impulse for further development of written language and culture.
Today Kiev is an important industrial, scientific, educational and cultural centre of Eastern Europe. It is home to many high-tech industries, higher education institutions and world-famous historical landmarks. The city has an extensive infrastructure and highly developed system of public transport, including the Kiev Metro.
The capital of Ukraine has got great cultural potential. There are more that 30 museums, about 200 unique architectural monuments, 33 theatres, enormouse quantity of constant active art exhibitions. Kiev is one of the greenest cities of the world, it has more that 60 parks. In spring and summer the city resembles one huge park.
There are many historical places in Kiev. For example, St Sophia Cathedral, which was built in the 11th century, Kievo-Pecherskaya Lavra that was founded in the 11th century, St Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery, which was ruined and recently completely restored, St. Andrew’s chirch in baroque style?
The monument to Taras Shevchenko, the great Ukrainian poet, is in front of the University, named after him. The monument to Bohdan Khmelnitsky, famous hetman of Ukraine, stands in the square opposite to St Sophia Cathedral.
Kiev is the centre of cultural life of Ukraine. Fans of theatre, cinema, music, painting and other arts can find there many interesting for themselves. There are lots of museums in Kiev: the Museum of Ukrainian Arts, the Historic Museum, the Taras Shevchenko Museum, the Lesya Ukrainka Museum, the museum of M. Bulgakov and others.
Text 8. Computers
Computer is an electronic device that can receive a set of instructions called program and then carry out them. The modern world of high technology could not be possible without computers. Different types and sizes of computers find uses throughout our society. They are used for the storage and handling of data, secret governmental files, information about banking transactions and so on.
Computers have opened up a new era in manufacturing and they have enhanced modern communication systems. They are essential tools in almost every field of research, from constructing models of the universe to producing tomorrow's weather reports. Using of different databases and computer networks make available a great variety of information sources.
There are two main types of computers, analog and digital, although the term computer is often used to mean only the digital type, because this type of computer is widely used today. That is why I am going to tell you about digital computers.
Everything that a digital computer does is based on one operation: the ability to determine: on or off, high voltage or low voltage or — in the case of numbers — 0 or 1 or do-called binary code. The speed at which the computer performs this simple act is called computer speed. Computer speeds are measured in Hertz or cycles per second. A computer with a «clock speed» of 2000 MHz is a fairly representative microcomputer today. It is capable of executing 2000 million discrete operations per second. Nowadays microcomputers can perform from 800 to over 3000 million operations per second and supercomputers used in research and defense applications attain speeds of many billions of cycles per second.
Digital computer speed and calculating power are further enhanced by the amount of data handled during each cycle. Except two main types of computers, analog and digital there are eight generations of digital computers or processing units. The first generation was represented by processing unit Intel 8086.
The second generation central processing unit was represented by processing unit Intel 80286, used in IBM PC AT 286. The third generation is Intel 80386, used in IBM PC AT 386. The microprocessors of the fourth generation were used in computers IBM PC AT 486. There are also central processing units of the fifth generation, used in Intel Pentium 60 and Intel Pentium 66, central processing units of the sixth generation, used in computers Intel Pentium 75, 90,100 and 133. Few years ago appeared central processing units of seventh and eighth generations. They are much more powerful and can perform from 2000 to over 3000 million operations per second.
Questions:
1. What is computer?
2. What is the main purpose of all computers?
3. Where are computers used?
4. What is the index of computer speed?
5. What speeds do modern computers have?
6. How many generations of digital computer are there?
7. What is the first generation processing unit?
Vocabulary
electronic device — электронное устройство
to receive — получать, принимать
set of instructions — набор/свод инструкций
to carry out — выполнять
society — общество
storage — хранение
handling — обработка
transaction — операция
to enhance — повышать, увеличивать
essential — существенный
tool — инструмент, орудие
network — сеть
