Прочтите текст и скажите, что изучает электроника и какие открытия способствовали ее развитию

Electronics is a field of engineering and applied physics dealing with the design and application of electronic circuits. The operation of circuits depends on the flow of electrons for generation, transmission, reception and storage of information.

Today it is difficult to imagine our life without electronics. It surrounds us everywhere. Electronic devices are widely used in scientific research and industrial designing, they control the work of plants and power stations, calculate the trajectories of space-ships and help the people discover new phenomena of nature. Automatization of production processes and studies on living organisms became possible due to electronics.

The invention of vacuum tubes at the beginning of the 20^th century was the starting point of the rapid growth of modern electronics. Vacuum tubes assisted in manipulation of signals. The development of a large variety of tubes designed for specialized functions made possible the progress in radio communication technology before the World War II and in the.creation of early computers during and shortly after the war.

The transistor invented by American scientists W.Shockly, J. Bardeen and W.Brattain in 1948 completely replaced the vacuum tube. The transistor, a small piece of a semiconductor with three electrodes, had great advantages over the best vacuum tubes. It provided the same functions as the vacuum tube but at reduced weight, cost, power consumption, and with high reliability. With the invention of the transistor all essential circuit functions could be carried out inside solid bodies. The aim of creating electronic circuits with entirely solid-state components had finally been realized. Early transistors could respond at a rate of a few million times a second. This was fast enough to serve in radio circuits, but far below the speed needed for high speed computers or for microwave communication systems.

The progress in semiconductor technology led to the development of the integrated circuit (IC), which was discovered due to the efforts of John Kilby in 1958. There appeared a new field of science — integrated electronics. The essence of it is batch processing. Instead of making, testing and assembling descrete components on a chip one at a time, large groupings of these components together with their interconnections were made all at a time. IC greatly reduced the size of devices, lowered manufacturing costs and at the same time they provided high speed and increased reliability.

3. Просмотрите текст еще раз. Ответьте на вопросы, используя информацию текста.

1. What is electronics? 2. Can you imagine modern life without electronics? 3. Where are electronic devices used? 4. What was the beginning of electronics development? 5. What made the progress in radio communication technology possible? 6. What is the transistor? 7. When was the transistor invented? 8. What aim was realized with the invention of the transistor? 9. When were integrated circuits discovered? 10. What advantages did the transistors have over the vacuum tubes?

4.Догадайтесь о значении следующих интернациональных слов и словосочетаний:

Electronics; electrons; physics; information; microelectronics; industrial design; to calculate trajectories; phenomena of nature; automatization of production processes; organisms; vacuum tubes; specialized functions; progress in radio communication technology; transistor; electrode; components; to realize; communication system; technology; descrete components; chip.

5. Найдите в тексте английские эквиваленты следующих словосочетаний:

Прикладная физика; передача и прием информации; поток электронов; трудно представить; научные исследования; промышленное проектирование; вычислять траекторию космических кораблей; обнаруживать явления природы; благодаря электронике; отправная точка; способствовать управ­лению сигналами; быстрый рост; разнообразие ламп; создание первых компьютеров; полностью заменил; полупроводниковый кристалл; уменьшить вес; сократить стоимость; потребление электроэнергии; высокая надежность; твердотельные компоненты; довольно быстро... но гораздо ниже; высокоскоростной компьютер; микроволновые системы связи; полупроводниковая технология; область науки; интегральная схема; пакетная обработка; сборка дискретных компонентов на кристалле; снизить производственные затраты; обеспечить высокую скорость.

Unit 2

HISTORY OF COMPUTERS

1. Ознакомьтесь с терминами текста 1

calculating device — вычислительное устройство

multiple — кратный

abacus — счеты

slide rule — логарифмическая линейка

logarithm table — логарифмическая таблица

calculus — исчисление; математический анализ

general-purpose— общего назначения, универсальный

to cut out the human being altogether — полностью исключить человека

to manipulate — обрабатывать, преобразовывать; управлять

data processing — обработка данных (информации)

tabulate the census — занести данные по переписи (населения) в таблицу

means of coding — средства кодирования (шифровки)

to punch the holes — пробивать отверстия

punched card — перфокарта

to perform — выполнять, производить (действие); осуществлять;

unit of data — единица информации

keyboard terminals — терминал (вывод) с клавишным управлением

proliferation — размножение, быстрое увеличение

2. Прочтите текст и скажите, о каких первых вычислительных приборах рассказывается в нем.

Text 1. THE FIRST CALCULATING DEVICES

Let us take a look at the history of computers that we know today. The very first calculating device used was the ten fingers of a man’s hands. This, in fact, is why today we still count in tens and multiples of tens.

Then the abacus was invented. People went on using some form of abacus well into the 16^th century, and it is still being used in some parts of the world because it can be understood without knowing how to read.

During the I7^th and 18^th’ centuries many people tried to find easy ways of calculating. J.Napier, a Scotsman, invented a mechanical way of multiplying and dividing, which is now the modern slide rule works. Henry Briggs used Napier’s ideas to produce logarithm tables which all mathematicians use today.

Calculus, another branch of mathematics, was independently invented by both Sir Isaak Newton, an Englishman, and Leibnitz, a German mathematician. The first real calculating machine appeared in 1820 as the result of several people’s experiments.

In 1830 Charles Babbage, a gifted English mathematician, proposed to build a general-purpose problem-solving machine that he called “the analytical engine”. This machine, which Babbage showed at the Paris Exhibition in 1855, was an attempt to cut out the human being altogether, except for providing the machine with the necessary facts about the problem to be solved. He never finished this work, but many of his ideas were the basis for building today’s computers.

By the early part of the twentieth century electromechanical machines had been developed and were used for business data processing. Dr. Herman Hollerith, a young statistician from the US Census Bureau successfully tabulated the 1890 census. Hollerith invented a means of coding the data by punching holes into cards. He built one machine to punch the holes and others to tabulate the collected data. Later Hollerith left the Census Bureau and established his own tabulating machine company. Through a series of merges the company eventually became the IBM Corporation.

Until the middle of the twentieth century machines designed to manipulate punched card data were widely used for business data processing. These early electromechanical data processors were called unit record machines because each punched card contained a unit of data.

In the mid—1940s electronic computers were developed to perform calculations for military and scientific purposes. By the end of the 1960s commercial models of these computers were widely used for both scientific computation and business data processing. Initially these computers accepted their input data from punched cards. By the late 1970s punched cards had been almost universally replaced by keyboard terminals. Since that time advances in science have led to the proliferation of computers throughout our society, and the past is but the prologue that gives us a glimpse of the future.

3. Просмотрите текст еще раз. Ответьте на вопросы, используя информацию текста.

1. What was the very first calculating device? 2. What is the abacus? 3. What is the modern slide rule? 4. Who gave the ideas for producing logarithm tables? 5. How did Newton and Leibnitz contribute to the problem of calculation? 6. When did the first calculating machine appear? 7. What was the main idea of Ch.Babbage’s machine? 8. How did electromechanical machines appear and what were they used for? 9. What means of coding the data did Hollerith devise? 10. How were those electromechanical machines called and why? 11. What kind of computers appeared later? 12. What new had the computers of 1970s?

4. Найдите в тексте английские эквиваленты следующих словосочетаний:

Вычислительное устройство; легкий способ вычисления; поэтому (вот почему); кратное десяти; изобрести механический способ умножения и деления; логарифмическая линейка; составить таблицы логарифмов; математический анализ; изобрести независимо (друг от друга); в результате; полностью исключить человека; кроме (за исключением); обработка деловой информации; средство кодирования информации; перфокарты; пробивать отверстия; оформить собранные данные в таблицу; работать с данны­ми на перфокарте; устройство, записывающее информацию блоками; единица информации; выполнять вычисления; для научных целей; клавишный терминал.

5. Переведите словосочетания, содержащие:

А. Причастие I — Participle I

Computers using vacuum tubes; the machine calculating mathematical problems; the computer keeping instructions in its memory; binary code storing data and instructions; the vacuum tube controlling and amplifying electronic signals; computers performing computations in milliseconds; electronic pulses moving at the speed of light; students coding the information by using a binary code; devices printing the information; keyboard terminals replacing vacuum tubes.

Б. Причастие II — Participle II

The given information; the name given to the machine; the coded data; the device used in World War II; the invention named ENIAC; the machine called EDVAC; instructions kept in the memory; the engine designed for storing data; data stored in a binary code; vacuum tubes invented by J. Neumann; the general-purpose machine proposed by Ch. Babbage; the machine provided with the necessary facts.

6. Ознакомьтесь с терминами текста 2.

analog computer— аналоговый компьютер

digital computer— цифровой компьютер

to aim guns— наводить орудия на цель

to figure out — вычислять

at a fast rate — с высокой скоростью

memory / storage — запоминающее устройство

to store data and instructions — запоминать информацию и команды

stored program computer — компьютер с занесенной в память программой

binary code — двоичный код

condition — режим, состояние, условие

vacuum tube — электронная (вакуумная) трубка (лампа)

to amplify — усиливать

to perform computations — выполнять вычисления

7.Прочтите текст 2 и скажите, что вы узнали о первых цифровых и аналоговых компьютерах. Переведите текст.

Text 2. THE FIRST COMPUTERS

In 1930 the first analog computer was built by American named Vannevar Bush. This device was used in World War II to help aim guns. Many technical developments of electronic digital computers took place in the 1940s and 1950s. Mark 1, the name given to the first digital computer, was completed in 1944. The man responsible for this invention was Professor Howard Aiken. This was the first machine that could figure out long lists of mathematical problems at a very fast rate.

In 1946 two engineers at the University of Pennsilvania, J.Eckert and J.Maushly, built their digital computer with vacuum tubes. They named their new invention ENIAC (the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator).

Another important achievement in developing computers came in 1947, when John von Neumann developed the idea of keeping instructions for the computer inside the computer’s memory. The contribution of John von Neumann was particularly significant. As contrasted with Babbage’s analytical engine, which was designed to store only data, von Neumann’s machine, called the Electronic Discrete Variable Computer, or EDVAC, was able to store both data and instructions. He also contributed to the idea of storing data and instructions in a binary code that uses only ones and zeros. This simplified computer design. Thus computers use two conditions, high voltage, and low voltage, to translate the symbols by which we communicate into unique combinations of electrical pulses. We refer to these combinations as codes. _t

Neumann’s stored program computer as well as other machines of that time were made possible by the invention of the vacuum tube that could control and amplify electronic signals. Early computers, using vacuum tubes, could perform computations in thousandths of seconds, called milliseconds, instead of seconds required by mechanical devices.