Ex. 11. Find English equivalents in the text.

Вдохновлять, выполнять вычисления, точность, изобретение, сделать открытие, опережать.

 

Ex. 12. Put the proper words into the sentences.

Effort, obsolete, track, arithmetic, device, mathematicians, construct, engine.

1) The famous philosophers Leibniz and Pascal both … somewhat primitive calculating ….

2) After a great deal of time and …, a working model of the Difference … was ….

3) Although the punched card is now becoming …, it was of crucial importance in the development of the computer.

4) An abacus is a … that allows the operator to keep … of numbers while doing the basic … operations.

5) A square-shaped wheel wouldn’t be … because it wouldn’t roll easily.

6) Charles Babbage disliked doing the great amount of … that … had to perform in course of solving problems.

7) “Automation” means … machines to do jobs that people do.

 

Ex. 13. Complete the sentences.

1) In 1823 Babbage obtained a government grant to ….

2) In 1854 a Swedish printer built ….

3) Babbage set out to build a machine that would calculate the tables and ….

4) Ada became interested in Babbage’s Analytical Engine when she ….

5) In 1842 Lady Lovelace discovered a paper ….

6) Inspired by Jacquard’s punched-card-controlled loom, Babbage wanted ….

 

Ex. 14. Answer the questions.

1) What inspired Babbage to build the Analytical Engine?

2) Why wasn’t the Analytical Engine built?

3) If the Analytical Engine had been completed, would it have been a success? Why?

4) Who helped Babbage to construct the software?

 

Ex. 15. Write a paragraph to show the difference between the Difference Engine and the Analytical Engine.

Ex. 16. Read the text. Translate it into Russian. Give a summary of it.

 

The Harvard Mark I

A hundred years passed before a machine like the machine Babbage conceived was actually built. This occurred in 1944 when Howard Aiken of Harvard University completed the Harvard Mark I.

Mark I was controlled by a punched paper tape, which played the same role as Babbage’s punched cards. It was basically mechanical and was driven by the electricity. Electricity served to transmit information from one part of the machine to another and replaced the complex mechanical linkages that Babbage had proposed. Using electricity made the difference between success and failure.

The Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (Harvard Mark I) was the first operating machine that could execute long computations automatically. A project conceived by Harvard University's Dr. Howard Aiken, the Mark I was built by IBM engineers in Endicott, N.Y. A steel frame 51 feet (16 m) long and eight feet high held the calculator, which consisted of an interlocking panel of small gears, counters, switches and control circuits, all only a few inches in depth. The ASCC used 500 miles (800 km) of wire with three million connections, 3,500 multipole relays with 35,000 contacts, 2,225 counters, 1,464 tenpole switches and tiers of 72 adding machines, each with 23 significant numbers. It was the industry's largest electromechanical calculator.

But the Mark I was scarcely finished before it was obsolete. The electromechanical machines were not fast enough. Their speed was limited by the time required for mechanical parts to move from one position to another. Mark I took six seconds for a multiplication and twelve for a division. This was only six times faster than what a human with an old desk calculator could do.

Ex. 17. Match sentence in column A with sentence in column B.

	A		B
	The machine like Babbage conceived was actually built.	A	Электричество заменило сложные механические соединения, которые предлагал Бэббидж.
	But the Mark I was scarcely finished before it was obsolete.	B	В модели Марк 1 использовались 3,500 многополюсных реле с 35,000 контактами.
	A steel frame 51 feet long and eight feet high held the calculator.	C	Едва модель Марк 1 была построена, как она устарела.
	Mark I took six seconds for a multiplication.	D	Модель Марк 1 состояла из соединенных между собой шестеренок, счетчиков, переключателей и цепей управления.
	The ASCC used 3,500 multipole relays with 35,000 contacts.	E	Модель Марк 1 работала при помощи перфоленты.
	Mark I was controlled by a punched paper tape.	F	Вычислительная машина размещалась на стальном каркасе длинной 51 футов и высотой 8 футов.
	Mark I consisted of an interlocking panel of small gears, counters, switches and control circuits.	G	Машина, подобная той, которую задумал Бэббидж, была действительно построена.
	Electricity replaced the complex mechanical linkages that Babbage had proposed.	H	Модели Марк 1 для операции умножения требовалось шесть секунд.

 

Ex. 18. Give English equivalents.

Задумать, перфолента, механические соединения, передавать информацию, провода, контакт, переключатель, крепление, устаревший, предлагать, умножение, деление, выполнять вычисления автоматически.

 

Ex. 19. Read the text. Translate it into Russian.

What was needed was a machine whose computing, control, and memory elements were completely electrical. Then the speed of operation would be limited not by the speed of mechanical moving parts but the much greater speed of moving electrons.

In the late 1930s John V. Atanasoff of Iowa state College demonstrated the elements of an electronic computer. His work was not widely known, but it influenced the thinking of John W. Mauchly, one of the designers of the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator (ENIAC).

ENIAC rendered the electromechanical machines obsolete. ENIAC used vacuum tubes for computing and memory. For control it used an electrical plug board like a telephone switchboard. The connections on the plug board specified the sequence of operations ENIAC would carry out.

ENIAC was 500 times as fast as the best electromechanical computer. After ENIAC all computers would be electronic.

EDVAC was constructed at about the same time as ENIAC. But EDVAC, influenced by the ideas of the brilliant Hungarian-American mathematician John von Neumann, was far more advanced.

Two innovations, which first appeared in EDVAC, have been incorporated in almost every computer since then.

First, EDVAC used binary notation to represent numbers inside the machine. Binary notation is a system for writing numbers that uses only two digits (0 and 1).

Second, EDVAC’s program was stored in the machine’s memory just like the data. Previous computers had stored the program on punched tapes or plug boards. Since the programs were stored the same way the data were, one program could manipulate another program as if it were data. A stored-program computer is usually called a von Neumann machine.

 

Ex. 20. Answer the questions.

1) What is ENIAC? Decode the word.

2) What did ENIAC use for computing and memory?

3) What did ENIAC use for control?

4) What did V. Atanasoff and John W. Mauchly contribute to the development of ENIAC?

5) EDVAC was much more advanced than ENIAC, wasn’t it?

6) How is a stored-program computer usually called?

7) Due to what invention could the first digital computers be built?

 

Ex. 21. Choose the right answer.

1. What helped people to do arithmetic in ancient times?

a) pebbles

b) abacus

c) calculator

2. When did calculators begin to appear?

a) 17^th c.

b) 16^th c.

c) 18^th c.

3. Who built the first mechanical calculator?

a) Ch. Babbage

b) John von Neumann

c) Pascal, Leibniz

4. Who helped Ch. Babbage to construct software for the Analytical Engine?

a) Jacquard

b) Ada Lovelace

c) Augustus de Morgan

5. What did Ch. Babbage and Ada have in common?

a) eccentricity

b) love for horses

c) stubbornness

6. What talent did Ada exhibit early in her life?

a) writing poems

b) learning foreign languages

c) mathematical talents

7. What system did Babbage adapt from French weaving machines?

a) creating patterns

b) punched card programming

c) automated calculation

8. What was the first electromechanical computer?

a) EDVAC

b) The Mark I

c) ENIAC

9. Who invented the electronical digital computer?

a) John V. Atanasoff

b) Ch. Babbage

c) John Mauchly

10. What was the most significant innovation in EDVAC?

a) an integrated circuit

b) a stored program

c) punched cards

Ex. 22. Find information about the generations of computers. Fill in the table. Make a video presentation about one of the generations of computers in class.