Lesson 3. Optical discs and drives

I. Before reading the text discuss these questions:

1. What do CD and DVD stand for?

2. What is the main advantage of using DVDs instead of CDs?

3. What is the Blue-ray format? Where does it get its name?

II. Read and translate the text.

Optical discs can store data at much higher densities than magnetic discs. They are therefore ideal multimedia applications where images, animation and sound occupy a lot of disc space. Optical discs are not affected by magnetic fields, so they are secure and stable, and can be transported through metal detectors without damaging the data. However, optical drives are slower than hard drives.

At first sight, a DVD is similar to a CD. Both discs are 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick. They also both use a laser beam to read data. However, they are very different in internal structure and data capacity. In a DVD, tracks are very close together, thus allowing more tracks. The pits in which data is stored are also smaller, so there are more pits per track. As a result, a CD can hold 650-700 MB, whereas a basic DVD can hold 4.7 GB.

CDs come in three different formats:

•CD-ROMs are read-only units, meaning you cannot change the data stored on them.

•CD-R (recordable) discs are write-only devices that let you duplicate other CDs.

•CD-RW (rewritable) discs enable a user to write onto them many times, just like a hard disk.

A CD-ROM drive is a device that can read information from a CD-ROM. CD-ROM drives can be either internal, in which case they fit in a bay, or external, in which case they generally connect to the computer’s USB or ESATA. ESATA CD-ROM drive is easier to install, but it has several disadvantages. It’s somewhat more expensive than internal drives and ESATA can be rarely implemented in the motherboards. USB is easier to install and connect. It’s possible to move USB drive between different PCs.

There are a number of features that distinguish CD-ROM drives, the most important of which is probably their speed. CD-ROM drives are generally classified as single-speed or some multiple of single-speed.

Two more precise measurements are the drive’s access time and data transfer rate. The access time measures how long, on average, it takes the drive to access a particular piece of information. The data transfer rate measures how much data can be read and sent to the computer in a second.

DVDs also come in several formats:

•DVD-ROMs are used in DVD computer drives. They allow for data archiving as well as interactive content.

•DVD-R or DVD+R can only be recorded on once.

•DVD-RW or DVD+RW discs can be erased and reused many times.

The DVD drive used in computers is also called a DVD burner because it records information by burning via a laser to a blank DVD disc.

HD-DVD and Blue-ray discs are expected to replace current DVD. HD stands for high definition. A Blue-ray disc has a capacity of 25GB, 50 GB and 100 GB. Unlike DVDs, which use a red laser to read and write data, Blue-ray uses a blue-violet laser, hence its name.

 

Notes

USB – Universal Serial Bus – универсальная последовательная шина; E SATA – External Serial Advanced Technology Attachment – последовательный интерфейс подключения внешних устройств (в отличие от SATA – последовательного интерфейсаобмена данными с накопителями); CD-ROM – compact disc read - only memory – компактный оптический диск с данными.

 

III. Give the Russian equivalents.

Device, disadvantage, bay, to distinguish, precise, measurement, access time, data transfer rate, average, to implement, feature, speed, to classify, laser beam, via, burner, high definition.

 

IV. Give the English equivalents.

Данные, скорость, классифицировать, устройство, скорость передачи данных, особенность, среднее число, отсек, время доступа, различать, недостаток, измерение, осуществить, точный.

 

V. Complete the following sentences.

1. A CD-ROM drive is _____ that can read information from a CD-ROM. 2. CD-ROM drives can be either _____, or _____. 3. CD-ROM drives are generally classified as ______. 4. Two more precise measurements are _____ and ______. 5. ______ measures how long it takes the drive to access a particular piece of information. 6. ______ measures how much data can be read and sent to the computer in a second.

 

VI. Sum up the contents of the text by answering the following questions:

1. What is a CD-ROM? 2. What is the difference between the internal CD-ROM and external CD-ROM drives? 3. What advantages of USB CD-ROM drive can you name? 4. ESATA drives have some disadvantages. What are they? 5. There are a number of features that distinguish CD-ROM drives, aren’t there? What are they? 6. What does the data transfer rate measure? 7. What is the basic function of disk drives?

UNIT 4. PERIPHERALS

Lesson 1. Monitor

I. Before reading the text look at the words bellow. How many of them do you know? Look up the unknown word s in the dictionary.

An enclosure, to classify, a device, liquid, permanent, capability, monochromic, background, foreground, to measure, to accept, an inch.

II. Read and translate the text.

A monitor or display (sometimes called a visual display unit) is a piece of electrical equipment which displays images generated by devices such as computers, without producing a permanent record. The computer sends a signal to the video adapter, telling it what character, image or graphic to display. The video adapter converts that signal to a set of instructions that tell the display device (monitor) how to draw the image on the screen. The monitor comprises the actual display device, circuitry, and an enclosure. The display device in modern monitors is typically a thin film transistor liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD), while older monitors use a cathode ray tube (CRT).

There are many ways to classify monitors. The most basic is in terms of colour capabilities, which separates monitors into three classes:

a) monochrome: Monochrome monitors actually display two colours, one for the background and one for the foreground. The colours can be black and white, green and black, or amber and black.

b) grey-scale: A grey-scale monitor is a special type of monochrome monitor capable of displaying different shades of grey.

c) colour: Colour monitors can display anywhere from 16 to over 1 million different colons. Colour monitors are sometimes called RGB monitors because they accept three separate signals — red, green, and blue.

After this classification, the most important aspect of a monitor is its screen size. Like televisions, screen sizes are measured in diagonal inches, the distance from one corner to the opposite corner diagonally. A typical size for small VGA monitors is 14 inches. Monitors that are 16 or more inches diagonally are often called full-page monitors.

The resolution of a monitor indicates how densely packed the pixels are. In general, the more pixels (often expressed in dots per inch), the sharper the image. Another common way of classifying monitors is in terms of the type of signal they accept — analogue or digital.

 

III. What do the following abbreviations stand for?

a) TFT; b) LCD; c) CRT; d) RGB (monitor); e) VGA (monitor)

 

IV. Work with the dictionary and find the meanings of the following words. Try to explain them in English.

Equipment; video adapter; device; pixel

V. What do you call

1. a set of tools or devices used for a particular purpose?

2. the smallest discrete component of an image or picture on a CRT screen (usually a coloured dot)?

3. a machine or tool used for a particular purpose?

4. a board that plugs into a personal computer to give it display capabilities?

5. a screen used to display certain kinds of information, for example in airports or television studios?

6. a mental picture of someone or something produced by the imagination or memory?

VI. Arrange synonyms in pairs and give their Russian equivalents.

A) Display, character, convert, separate, measure, indicate;

B) Point, quantify, symbol, monitor, divide, alter.

 

VII. Ask your group-mates 3 or 4 questions on the text.

Lesson 2. Keyboard

I. Read the text.

The term “peripherals” refers to a large class of auxiliary devices that may be connected to a computer. Most peripherals are used either for data storage or for input or output. Although some are virtually essential (there are few computers without keyboards and screens), many peripherals are optional adjuncts to the operation of a computer.

Input devices are the pieces of hardware which allow us to enter information into the computer. The most common are the keyboard and the mouse. We can also interact with a computer by using one of these: a light pen, a scanner, a trackball, a graphics tablet, a game controller or a microphone.

 

II. Complete these sentences.

1. This device is ____ enter information into the computer. 2. ____ it may also____ function keys and editing keys ____special purposes. 3. This is a device____ the cursor and selecting items on the screen. 4. It usually ____two buttons and a wheel. 5. …the user ____active icons or select items and text. 6. It ____ detecting light from the computer screen and is used by pointing it directly at the screen display. 7. It _____ the used ____ answer multi-choice questions and…

 

III. Choose one of the input devices given below and describe its functions and features.

A bar code reader; a touchpad on a portable PC; a webcam; a touch screen.

 

IV. Read and translate the text.

The keyboard

The set of typewriter-like keys that enables you to enter data into a computer is called a keyboard. Computer keyboards are similar to electric-typewriter keyboards but contain additional keys. The keys on computer keyboards are often classified as follows:

Alphanumeric keys represent letters and numbers, as arranged on a typewriter.

Punctuation keys represent comma, period, semicolon, and so on.

Special keys comprise function keys, control keys, arrow keys, Caps Lock key, etc.

Function keys appear at the top of the keyboard and can be programmed to do special tasks.

Cursor control keys include arrow keys that move the insertion point up, down, right and left, and keys such as End, Home, Page Up and Page Down, which are used in word processing to move around a long document.

Dedicated keys are used to issue commands or to produce alternative characters, e.g. the Ctrl key or the Alt key.

A numeric keypad appears to the right of the main keyboard. The Num Lock key is used to switch from numbers to editing keys.

 

The standard layout of letters, numbers, and punctuation is known as a QWERTY keyboard(pronounced kwer-tee) because the first six keys on the top row of letters spell QWERTY. The arrangement of characters on a QWERTY keyboard was designed in 1868 by Christopher Sholes, the inventor of the typewriter. According to a popular myth, Sholes arranged the keys in their odd fashion to prevent jamming on mechanical typewriters by separating commonly used letter combinations. However, there is no evidence to support this assertion, except that the arrangement does, in fact, inhibit fast typing.

Another keyboard design, which has letters positioned for speed typing, is the Dvorak keyboard. The Dvorak keyboard was designed in the 1930s by August Dvorak, a professor of education, and his brother-in-law, William Dealy. Unlike the traditional QWERTY keyboard, the Dvorak keyboard is designed so that the middle row of keys includes the most common letters. In addition, common letter combinations are positioned in such a way that they can be typed quickly.

There is no standard computer keyboard, although many manufacturers imitate the keyboards of PCs.

 

V. Match the descriptions (1-8) with the names of the keys (a-h).

1  A long key at the bottom of the keyboard. Each time it is pressed, it produces a blank space. 2  It moves the cursor to the beginning of a new line. It is also used to confirm commands. 3  It works in combination with other keys. For example, you press this key and C to copy the selected text. 4  It removes the character to the left of the cursor or any selected text. 5  It produces UPPER CASE characters. 6 It produces UPPER CASE letters, but it doesn’t affect numbers or symbols. 7 It moves the cursor horizontally to the right for a fixed number of spaces (in tabulations and data fields). 8 They are used to move the cursor, as an alternative to the mouse.

a arrow keys   b return/ enter   c Caps Lock   d shift   e tab   f space bar   g backspace   h Ctrl

 

VI. Translate the text in writing.

Computers originally dealt only with letters and numbers as input, so the keyboard is the oldest and most widespread input device. In addition to the basic typewriter arrangement of letters and numbers plus shift key, tab, and so forth, computer keyboards typically contain additional specialized keys. Control (Ctrl) and alternate (Alt) keys are used in conjunction with letter or number keys to issue commands from the keyboard to programs that are running on the computer. For example, Ctrl-C is a key combination often used to “break” or interrupt a program run and return control to the operating system. Function keys (typically ten or twelve) may have frequently used operations assigned to them by various programs one might run. For example, Fl (function key 1) might be used to get on-screen help, F3 to undo the last operation, and F10 to save the file. Cursor keys are used to move the cursor (a blinking line or rectangle indicating the currently active location on the screen) under keyboard control. Additional keys for insert, delete, page up, page down, and other operations help one move around in files during editing. The numeric keypad found on many keyboards is a convenience if many numbers must be entered, because the hand can stay in one location (typically at the right-hand side of the keyboard) rather than having to move back and forth on the top row.

The keyboard communicates with the operating system by issuing an interrupt for every key press. It normally has its own connector to the system unit and so does not occupy an I/O port.

 

Lesson 3. Mouse

I. Read and translate the text.

A device that controls the movement of the cursor or pointer on a display screen is a mouse. A mouse is a small object you can roll along a hard, flat surface. Its name is derived from its shape, which looks a bit like a mouse, its connecting wire that one can imagine to be the mouse’s tail, and the fact that one must make it scurry along a surface. As you move the mouse, the pointer on the display screen moves in the same direction. Mice contain at least one button and sometimes as many as three, which have different functions depending on what program is running. Some newer mice also include a scroll wheel for scrolling through long documents.

Invented by Douglas Engelbart of Stanford Research Center in 1963, and pioneered by Xerox in the 1970s, the mouse is one of the greatest breakthroughs in computer ergonomics because it frees the user to a large extent from using the keyboard. In particular, the mouse is important for graphical user interfaces because you can simply point to options and objects and click a mouse button. Such applications are often called point-and-click programs. The mouse is also useful for graphics programs that allow you to draw pictures by using the mouse like a pen, pencil, or paintbrush.

There are three basic types of mice.

A mechanical mouse has a rubber or metal ball on its underside that can roll in all directions. Mechanical sensors within the mouse detect the direction the ball is rolling and move the screen pointer accordingly.

An optomechanical mouse is the same as a mechanical mouse, but uses optical sensors to detect motion of the ball.

An optical mouse uses a laser to detect the mouse’s movement. You must move the mouse along a special mat with a grid so that the optical mechanism has a frame of reference. Optical mice have no mechanical moving parts. They respond more quickly and precisely than mechanical and optomechanical mice, but they are also more expensive.

Do you know what Mighty Mouse, Lisa Mouse and Bus Mouse mean?

The name given to Apple’s first multi-button mouse, was launched in 2005. This was the first mouse manufactured and sold by Apple Computers since the Lisa era in 1983 that contained more than a single button. The Mighty Mouse offers four separate button areas including a touch-sensitive top for both the left and right click, a 360-degree clickable scroll bar, and side squeeze buttons to instantly access the Mac OS X Dashboard or other customizable features. Currently the Mighty Mouse is available in both wired and wireless versions.

Lisa Mouse is the name for the mouse that was distributed with Apple’s first mouse-controlled computer (pre-Macintosh) in 1983. The Lisa Mouse used a steel ball (instead of the rubber ball found in more modern mice), and was rectangular in shape with a raised front panel, and contained a single mouse button.

A Bus mouse is connected to a computer via an expansion board. Another type of mouse was a serial mouse connected to a serial port. Serial mice were easier to install, but the advantage of bus mice was that they do not use up the serial port, so you could use the port for a different device. Bus mice are now obsolete.

Hamster is the name given to a cordless mouse that operates through an infrared connection.

 

II. Complete this text about the mouse with verbs from the box:

Click double-click drag grab select move control

 

A mouse allows you to (1)____the cursor and move around the screen very quickly. Making the same movements with the arrow keys on the keyboard would take much longer. As you (2)____the mouse on your desk, the pointer on the screen moves in the same direction. The pointer usually looks like an |-bar, an arrow, or a pointing hand, depending on what you are doing.

A mouse has one or more buttons to communicate with the computer. For example, if you want to place the insertion point or choose a menu option, you just (3)____(press and release) on the mouse button, and the option is chosen.

The mouse is also used to (4)_____text and items on the screen. You can highlight text to be deleted, copied or edited in some way.

The mouse is widely used in graphics and design. When you want to move an image, you position the pointer on the object you want to move, press the mouse button, and (5)_____ the image to a new location on the screen. Similarly, the mouse is used to change the shape of a graphic object. For example, if you want to convert a square into a rectangle, you (6)_____one corner of the square and stretch it into a rectangle.

The mouse is also used to start a program or open a document: you put the pointer on the file name and (7)_____on the name — that is, you rapidly press and release the mouse button twice.

 

III. Translate the text in writing.

The mouse, developed by Douglas Englebart of Xerox in the 1960s, is perfectly suited for operations like pointing, drawing, and selecting. Programs that involve picking objects on the screen, choosing entries from menus, or manipulating graphic objects often make extensive use of the mouse.

A typical mouse translates the motion of its underside on a flat surface into cursor movement on the screen. The principle may be mechanical (a roller or ball whose rotation translates into cursor movement) or optical (involving reference to a special gridded pad on which the mouse must be used). A mouse may have one, two, or three buttons. A simple press and release (called a “click”) normally selects an item; a click and hold operation is used for dragging an object around the screen or sometimes for moving down to the next level of a menu structure. For a mouse with fewer buttons, double clicks or clicks combined with keystrokes are often used to extend the range of operations that can be performed.

A mouse may either be connected to the rest of the computer through a serial port (serial mouse) or else have its own interface card and connector, which hooks directly onto the system bus (bus mouse). It often requires a device driver that must be loaded at system start-up.

Lesson 4. Touch screen

I. Read and translate the text.

The touch screen is, in a sense, the ultimate in simplicity for the computer user: touch the screen with your finger and something happens. As with the bit pad, different regions of the screen are assigned to different actions and are visually indicated by shape, colour, and text. The visitor information systems at Epcot (E xperimental P rototype C ommunity o f T omorrow) theme park at Walt Disney World Resort use touch screens.

The principle of the touch screen is electrical; the screen is fabricated with conductive and insulating layers in such a way that when a human finger presses on the screen (which is slightly deformable), an electrical connection is made. Making the screen sensitive to pressure rather than simply to touch improves its robustness under dirty conditions whether industrial grime or chocolate sauce on children’shands. One problem with the touch screen is that the human finger is a rather imprecise pointing device compared to a light pen or mouse. This limits the number of choices that can be displayed on a normal-sized computer screen at one time and forces the programmer to deal with questions concerning what happens if someone presses partly inside and partly outside a region. These problems have limited touch screen applications in industry.

 

II.Answer these questions.

1. What is a touch screen? 2. What is the principle of a touch screen? 3. Why is the screen made sensitive to pressure and not to touch? 4. What is the problem with the screen touch? 5. Why are touch screen applications limited?

 

III. Speak on the principle of the touch screen.

 

Lesson 5. Scanner

 

I. Before reading the text discuss how many ways there are of capturing an image on a computer.

II. Read the text and see how many things from your list are mentioned.

III. Read the text again and answer these questions.

1. Which device is used to input text and graphic images from a printed page?

2. How does a scanner send information to the computer?

3. Why is text scanning difficult?

4. In addition to flatbed (or desktop) scanners there are also handheld scanners, drum scanners, film (“slide” or negative) scanners and camera scanners. Do you know what they are used for?

 

A more recent and more widely applicable method of entering graphical information into computers is the optical scanner. A scannertakes a black and white paper original and represents it as a set of ones and zeros that correspond to little black and white squares. This kind of image is often called bit-mapped, since the information in the drawing has been “mapped” into a sequence of black and white squares or binary bits. A scanner “sees” images and converts the printed text or pictures into electronic codes that can be understood by the computer. With a flatbed colour scanner, the paper with the images is placed face down on a glass screen, as with a photocopier. Beneath the glass are the lighting and measurement devices. Once the scanner is activated, it reads the image as a series of dots and then generates the digitized image that is sent to the computer and stored as a file.

The scanner operates by using three rotating lamps, each of which has a different coloured filter: red, green and blue. The resulting three separate images are combined into one by appropriate software.

A difficulty with scanning technology is that the resulting image takes up a great deal of disk space if high resolution is desired. Text scanning is even more difficult, since the computer not only has to read in the image but must also decide whether the shape it is seeing is an A, a B, or whatever. Different types of fonts or poor quality printing sharply reduce the performance of text scanners, but the technology is developing.

 

IV. Complete the following sentences.

1. The technology used in scanners is similar to that used in a ____. 2. The scanned image is sent to the _____, where you can manipulate it. 3. To scan the text, you need special ______. 4. Flatbed scanners can scan ____.

 

V. What other ways of capturing an image on a computer do you know?

VI. What does a digital camera do?

VII. What does the term “camcoder” stand for? What does a camcoder do?

VIII. What do you know about web cameras (webcams)?

Lesson 6. Output devices

 

I. Before reading the text try to answer these questions.

1. What types of displays do you know?

2. How can you change the picture using the controls?

3. Can you watch TV on your PC monitor?

 

II. Complete these definitions with words from the box. Then read the text and check your answers.

Resolution pixel aspect ratio colour depth video adapter plasma screen

 

1. ______– the smallest unit on a display screen or bitmapped image (usually a coloured dot)

2. _______– an expansion card that generates the video signal sent to a computer display

3. ________– the width of the screen in proportion to its height

4. ________– also called gas discharge display

5. ________– the number of pixels contained in a display, horizontally and vertically

6. ________– the number of bits used to hold a colour pixel; this determines the maximum number of colours that can be displayed

 

III. Read the text again and answer these questions.

1. What do CRT and LCD stand for? 2. How is the screen size measured? 3. What technology is used in active-matrix LCDs? 4. What unit of frequency is used to measure the brightness of a display? 5. What substance produces light and colour when hit by electrons in a CRT monitor?

 

Displays, often called monitors or screens, are the most-used output device on a computer. They provide instant feedback by showing text and graphic images.

The monitor or screen is the computer’s usual means of communicating with the user. The term “monitor” probably comes from the fact that the user monitors, or keeps track of, what the computer is doing by watching the display on the screen. Screens vary in size, resolution, colour and graphics capabilities, and the technology used to produce the screen image.

Resolution refers to the number of dots of colour, known as pixels (picture elements), contained in a display. It is expressed by identifying the number of pixels on the horizontal and vertical axes.

The size of display is described by the aspect ration and the screen size. Historically, computer displays, like most televisions, have had an aspect ratio of 4:3 – the width of the screen to the height is four to three. For widescreen LCDs, the aspect ratio is 16:9.

Inside the computer there is a video adapter, or graphics card, which processes images and sends signals to the monitor. CTR monitors use VGA (video graphics adapter) cable, which converts digital signals into analogue signals. LCDs use a DVI (digital video interface) connection.

Colour depth refers to the number of colours a monitor can display. This depends on the number of bits used to describe the colour of a single pixel.

Most desktop displays use Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) or Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) technology, while portable computing devices incorporate LCDs.

The CRT is the oldest and most commonly used display technology in the computer world. The principle of operation is similar to a television set in that a tube similar to a picture tube projects dots of coloured light onto different parts of the screen to form letters and other images. However, the process by which information is transferred from computer memory to a screen image is differentfrom the reconstruction of a television picture from a broadcast signal, as will be explained shortly.

Monochrome (one colour) monitors display either one colour (most commonly yellow, green, or white) on a black background, or else black on a white background. The colour is determined by the chemical makeup of the phosphor, a substance that coats the inner surface of the CRT and generates the display by glowing when excited by light.

Colour monitors have three phosphor dots for each point (or pixel, for a picture cell) on the screen that can be activated by the scanning beam. Each of these dots will glow red, blue, or green when excited by light. Since these are the three light primaries, other colours can be produced by exciting more than one of the dots for a given pixel. More shades of colour can be generated if the intensity of the dots can be varied.

As in a television set, the phosphor dots are activated by a light beam that scans the screen in horizontal lines, moving from top to bottom. Scan time or refresh rate is a measure of how long the beam takes to make a complete pass over the screen. Scan time is important because the excited phosphor dots stay bright for only a limited time (this time is called the “persistence” of the phosphor). Display quality therefore involves matching the scan time with the characteristics of the phosphor. If the scan is too slow for the phosphor, the display will flicker because some phosphor dots will have a chance to grow visibly dim before the beam comes back to recharge them. A high-persistence phosphor, however, will leave a “ghost” image on the screen for a noticeable time after the light stimulus is removed. The faster scanning needed with a low-persistence phosphor is more expensive because the electronics and control circuitry for the beam must have a faster response time.

When a computer must be small or portable, CRT technology becomes difficult to implement. The tube cannot be compressed front to back beyond a certain point without compromising image quality (as the scanning beam must move through a wider angle, the dots near the edge become elliptical instead of circular). Moreover, CRTs are highly subject to impact damage or breakage. Therefore, many portable computers use LCD technology instead.

LCDs are widely used in calculators, digital watches, and instruments as well as in computers. The screen consists of a sheet of crystallinematerial sandwiched between two sheets of glass. The crystals can assume two shapes: one when excited by an energy input, the other when unexcited. In their unexcited state, the crystals reflect most of the incident light and appear pale grey; when excited, they absorb light and appear black.

One advantage of LCDs is that the amount of energy required to make the crystals change shape is much less than that needed to turn on a dot on a CRT phosphor display. The lesser energy input, however, plus the fact that the LCD is merely reflecting or absorbing the ambient light rather than itself emitting light, means that LCDs can suffer from poor contrast, especially in marginal lighting conditions or when viewed at an angle. More recent designs use improved crystals or backlighting to obtain more contrast.

Active-matrix LCDs use TFT (thin film transistor) technology, in which each pixel has its own switch. The amount of light the LCD monitor produces is called brightness or luminance, measured in cd/ m² (candela per square meter).

UNIT 5. BASIC SOFTWARE