Text B. Floppy and Winchester disks

 

Floppy disks are a magnetic storage medium (среда) which can be recorded, erased and used over and over again. Floppy disks are flexible (гибкий) plastic disks which have several standard sizes. Full size floppy disks are 8 inches in diameter; minifloppy disks are 5 inches in diameter. Both full size floppy disks and minifloppy disks are housed in a paper-like plastic envelope, usually black, and remain (оставаться) in the envelope at all times.

Microfloppy disks are in size from 3 to 4 inches. They are housed in a rigid (жесткий) plastic shell (оболочка) of different design. The number of bytes that can be recorded on a floppy disk are about 80,000 to 1,000,000 and more. Floppy disks are used extensively in personal computers, small business computers, word processing, etc.

Winchester disks are, in fact, hard disks made of metal. The name arises from the place of original development - the branch (филиал) of the IBM in the city of Winchester (Great Britain).

The Winchester technique requires that the access arm (рычаг выборки), read/write heads and disks are constructed as a sealed unit (герметичный модуль). By aligning the read/write heads to their own set of disks, greater storage and accessing speeds are obtainable. The Winchester disk provides a very large record density in comparison with other devices. It may be used in all kinds of computers.

XIII. Read Text B' and translate it without a dictionary. Retell its contents by 3-4 sentences.

TEXT B'. BUBBLE MEMORY

Bubble memory is a storage for programs and information. It is astorage technology which combines both semiconductor and magnetic recording techniques to create a solid state storage device.

Bubble memory is unique, because it is a disk that doesn't spin. The bits on the surface spin around the disk instead. Bubble memory units are only two square inches in size, and contain a thin film recording layer. The bits, called bubbles of their globular shape, are electromagnetically generated in circular strings inside this layer. In order to read or write the bubbles, the strings of bubbles are made to rotate past the equivalent (the string of bubbles) of a read/write head in a disk.

Bubble memory holds its contents without power, like disk and tape. It is considerably faster than floppy disks and many hard disks. It is often used in portable terminals and computers instead of disks.

 

Notes

1. bubble memory - память на магнитных доменах (пузырьковая память)

2. techniques - технические приемы

3. solid state - полупроводниковый

4. to spin - вращаться

5. their globular shape - их округлая форма

6. string - цепочка; последовательность

7. considerably - значительно

8. portable terminals - портативные терминалы

 

LESSON FOUR

 

Grammar. Revision of Non-Finite Forms of the Verb.

Text A. Central Processing Unit.

Text B. Six Computer Generations.

 

Exercises

I. Read the international words and guess their meaning:

nerve; system; to coordinate; to control; activity; central; processor; separate; section; role; to discuss; function; to interpret; actual; interpretation; signal; to decode; generator; automatically; accumulator; argument; decoder

 

II. Pronounce the following words correctly:

activity n деятельность	sequentially adv последовательно
apply v применять; прилагать, прикладывать	design n проект, конструкция; v проектировать; конструировать
execute v выполнять; осуществлять	happen v случаться
carry out v выполнять; проводить process n процесс; v обрабатывать	transfer v передавать; переносить; выполнять команду перехода
load n нагрузка; загрузка; ввод; v загружать	hence adv следовательно involve v включать в себя; вовлекать
convenient а удобный	argument n аргумент
consider v считать; полагать; рассматривать	accumulator n накапливающий сумматор
previous а предыдущий; предшествующий	refer v (to) относить(ся); ссылаться (на) facilitate v облегчать; способствовать
obtain v получать; достигать	contents n pl содержимое; содержание
accomplish v выполнять; совершать	relate v относиться; иметь отношение
separate v разделять; отделять	record n запись; регистрация; v
sense v считывать; воспринимать	записывать
cause v заставлять; причинять; вызывать	choose v выбирать

 

III. Memorize the following word combinations:

a central processor - центральный процессор

a control unit - блок управления

a control generator - генератор управления

an instruction decoder - дешифратор команд

an instruction register - регистр команд

a current-address register - регистр текущего адреса

an arithmetic and logic unit - арифметическое/логическое устройство

at the proper time - в надлежащее время

control signals - сигналы управления

in its turn - в свою очередь

on the basis of - на основе

at a time - за одно время (одновременно)

what to do next - что делать дальше

in this way - таким образом

while an instruction is being executed - во время выполнения команды