Text A. Read the text and be ready the answer the questions that follow.

 

The terms INTERNET, World Wide Web (WWW), the information highway refer to a dynamic new way that people around the world are using for communication and accessing vast amounts of computer related information. Today, we are integrated in an electronic communications world that spans the globe and offers a myriad of services — some for payment, some free. The Internet was born from roots of military secrecy and academic researchers engaged in
hush-hush projects. Electronic mail evolved spontaneously in mid-1960s. These early mail systems were written by a programmer or two, often as a weekend project, and had no uniformity. Then in 1969, the Advanced Research Project Agency Network (Arpanet) was begun by the U.S. government so that researchers at universities and other facilities might electronically ship computer data to each other and	to span — to include in space or time укр. охоплювати hush-hush (informal) — of plan, arrangement, etc. hidden from other people's knowledge, Synonym: secret укр. таємний, секретний to evolve — to develop gradually укр. розвиватися to ship — to send to a distant place укр. транспортувати remote — distant in space or time укр. віддалений, далекий to launch — 1) to send; 2) to begin, to start укр. 1) посилати 2) починати
remotely launch computer programs. A year later, Raymond Tomlinson, a principal scientist at BBN, the main Arpanet contractor, wrote a program employing Arpanet's file transfer protocol. The software let BBN's local mail system communicate with independent mail systems at the other Arpanet sites. An additional influence came from the U.S. Department of Defense, which in 1978 endorsed the Transmission Control Protocol/ Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) as a data communications standard, and made it a requirement on Arpanet and Milnet
(a government military network) in 1983. The result: e-mail quickly became a key means of communication among Arpanet users, as well as a vehicle for transmitting other information such as data files, packaged as e-mail messages. Today e-mail reaches many millions of people around the globe.	to endorse — to express approval or support укр. ухвалити vehicle — something by means of which something else can be passed on укр. засіб NOTE ALSO: vehicle — укр. будь-який транспортний засіб
Obviously, e-mail has many elements present in other forms of communication — body language, monogrammed notes etc. that give paper mail a personal touch. A few examples of «emoticons» or «smilies» that may be used in messages in a host of ways: :-) A joking comment ;-) A flirtatious or sarcastic comment :-(A frown, the user is upset or depressed :-D A laugh :-@ A scream %-) Confused :-X My lips are sealed:* A kiss Improvements in electronic mail services are on their way. Portable notebook computers with built-in wireless modems will enable users to send and receive e-mail anywhere. The advantages of electronic mail are many. Besides the obvious boon of avoiding telephoneboon — something very helpful or useful укр. благо time-zone dissonance, e-mail givesflexible — that can change or be changed to be suitable for companies unprecedented flexibility. new needs укр. гнучкий This flexibility may let companies operate with a smaller workforce — a specialist may work part-time with several project teams many hundred kilometers away. When one runs into a problem, e-mail can broadcast «does anybody know» request throughout the network. A person can say «Help» to 10000 people (which a person cannot do on the telephone), and the next morning s/he may have 15 answers to the problem, of which 13 are wrong. But s/he has answers!

 

Chapter 6 99

With e-mail, months or years no longer pass between a researcher's completion of experiments, and the dissemination of results. Now, scientific papers are «published» on the network, commented on, and often revised and «republished» several times before they appear in traditional journals or are delivered at conferences. A drawback of electronic mail, though, is that the ability to move fast is not always positive. Anytime there is rush, there is less time to
contemplate the results. We all make mistakes, and the increased rapidity in communications is depriving the scientist of the time to think, and talk to colleagues, and change things before they are made public. Electronic mail has some limitations. Everybody knows that it is very hard to reach a decision about something that is complex and multifaceted. Many scientists noticed that in course	to disseminate — to spread (news, ideas etc) widely укр. поширювати, розповсюджувати to contemplate — to think about something deeply укр. обмірковувати to deprive (of) (somebody of something) — to take away from, prevent from using or having укр. позбавляти
of lengthy and deep technical discussions carried on by means of e-mail it is hard to summarize the data presented and guide the group toward a solution — a usual result of a face-to-face meeting. But e-mail is great for collecting information, for helping people have contacts with many other people. FIDONET   Unlike the Internet, FidoNet is a telephone-based relay network, requiring people to make calls using existing public phone lines, ideally at regular intervals, to forward e-mail. INTERNET GOPHER
	Internet Gopher is a communications application designed by the University of Minnesota which allows users to access more than 5,000 Gopher servers worldwide.	NOTE Назва Gopher власне походить від:   «go fer» → «go for» («піди принеси») gopher (ховрах)
WORLD WIDE WEB   WWW is a hypertext-based system for accessing Internet resources. Though an efficient way to share information, the Internet had a drawback. There was no problem sharing text, because
everyone could use ASCII format for text files. But no such commonly agreed format existed for graphical, video, or audio data. In 1989, a London-born physicist and computer scientist, Tim Berners-Lee solved these problems while working at CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics near Geneva. To help the physicists throughout the facility share information, he contrived a simple means of transmitting all kinds of data — graphical, video, audio. Berners-Lee with his associates developed the Web by modifying and combining common software protocols. The fundamental Web protocols are the hypertext mark-up language (html) and the hypertext transport protocol (http, based on TCP/IP). Berners-Lee described his creation as an Internet-based hypermedia initiative for global information sharing. For short, he called it the World Wide Web. Now we have a lot of new technology with the potential to help us communicate widely, quickly, and efficiently.	hypertext: internally cross-referenced written information that allows a user to jump from topic to related topic ASCII — American Standard Code for Interchange; a set of 128 letters, numbers etc. used for easy exchange of information between a computer and other data processing machinery (вимовляється «ескі») to contrive — to make or invent in a clever way, esp. because of a sudden need укр. винаходити, вигадувати, вимудровувати.

 

 

Chapters

1. What is the subject of the passage?

 

2. What are the roots of Internet?

 

3. What is specific about «smilies» or «emoticons»?

 

4. What are the obvious advantages of e-mail? Are there any limitations?

 

5. What is specific about FidoNet?

 

6. What is specific about the World Wide Web?

 

Exercise 1. Give English equivalents of:

 

світ електронних комунікацій; велика кількість послуг; безкоштовні послуги; секретний проект; програмне забезпечення; апаратне забезпечення; електронна пошта; засіб передачі інформації; ухвалити стандарт; портативні комп'ютери; запит; розповсюджувати результати; обмірковувати; багатогранна проблема; гіпертекст; вигадати простий засіб.