Text B. Terms

The special terms of any subject are the keys to understanding it. The special terms of the field of computers are accordingly the keys to understand this field.

Among (среди) the many special terms in any field of knowledge there are two kinds: those that are essential (существенный), that convey (передавать) the key ideas of the subject to a person interested in understanding it; and those that are helpful but not essential. An example of the first kind of terms in the computer field is "binary notation" (двоичное исчисление); it would be very hard to understand much¹ in the field of computers without knowing the meaning of "binary notation". An example of the second kind is "minimum latency programming"; for many purposes it is not necessary to know exactly (точно) what this term means.

Notes

1. it would be very hard to understand much - было бы очень трудно понять многое

2. minimum latency programming - минимальное скрытое программирование

XVIII. Read Text В' and translate it without a dictionary. Try to memorize its main points.

TEXT B'. RELIABILITY

The first automatic computers of the 1940's were not reliable. The equipment of which they were made had not been accurate and reliable. The programmer for the problem usually had to program the check (проверка) by doing the same operation in another way. For example, in multiplication A times В he used the equipment from В times A, and so both (обе) operations might be programmed, and then the computer was given an instruction to compare the results. If a difference in results was more than a tolerance (допуск), the machine was stopped, and the operator in charge of (ответственный за) the computer and the mathematician in charge of the program consulted on how to get rid (избавиться) of the error (ошибка).

Those days have long since gone. Now computers can operate with extraordinary (чрезвычайный) reliability, with as many as a billion or ten billions operations between errors. Automatic checking of different kinds is built into the machine.

LESSON THREE

Grammar. The Participle. The Absolute Participle Constructions.

Text A. Memory or Storage Unit.

Text B. The Floppy and Winchester Disks.

Text B'. Bubble Memory