I read the text. Are these true (T) or false (F)? Correct the sentences where it is necessary.

1. In the eighteenth century, machines changed the world.

2. The first half of the twentieth century saw the start of the Computer Age.

3. The first computers were built in the 1940s and 1950s, and they were enormous.

4. Today, computers are everywhere.

5. Now computer chip weighs less than 1.5 tonnes.

6. There are no computers in offices; they are at your home.

 

II Answer the following questions:

1. When did machines change the world?

2. When was the start of the Industrial Age?

3. When were the first computers appeared?

4. Where can we find computers?

5. How did the first computers look?

6. What was the prediction in the magazine Popular Mechanics in 1949?

 

III Put these sentences in the right order:

1. The second half of the twentieth century saw the start of the Computer Age.

2. When the first computers were built in the 1940s and 1950s, they were enormous.

3. In the nineteenth century, machines changed the world.

4. Over the past fifty or sixty years, computers have changed much more than people thought possible.

 

IV Write the annotation to the text

V Translate the text

UNIT 2

In the beginning

For thousands of years, humans have needed to count. Families needed to know how many animals, how much food and how much land they had. This information was important when people wanted to buy and sell things, and also when people died or got married. There were many different ways to count and write down the numbers. The Sumerians had three different ways: they used one for land, one for fruit and vegetables, and one for animals. They could count, but they had no easy way to do calculations.

Around 1900 to 1800 BC, the Babylonians invented a new way to count which used place values. This meant that two things decided the size of a number: the digits and their position. Today, we still use place values to count. We can write any number using only ten digits (0-9): for example, 134 means 1 x 100, 3 x 10, and 4x1. Computers also use place values when they do calculations. They only use two digits (0 and 1): for example, 11011 means 1 x 16, 1 x 8, 0 x 4, 1 x 2, and l x l (=27). Without place values, fast calculations are impossible.

Between 1000 and 500 BC, the Babylonians invented the abacus. It used small stones which they put in lines. Each line of stones showed a different place value. To do calculations they moved stones from one line to another. Later, different kinds of abacuses were made. Some of them were made of wood and used coloured balls. (It is also possible that the abacus was first invented in China, but nobody really knows.)

Although an abacus can be very fast, it is not really a machine because it does not do calculations automatically. In the seventeenth century, people began to build calculating machines. In 1640, the French mathematician Blaise Pascal made an Arithmetic Machine. He used it to count money. During the next ten years, Pascal made fifty more machines.

In the 1670s, a German called Leibnitz continued Pascal's work and made a better machine. Leibnitz's machine was called the Step Reckon. It could do more difficult calculation than Pascal's Arithmetic Machine. Interestingly, Leibnitz's machine only used two digits (0 and 1) for doing calculations – just like modern computers! In fact, calculating machines like Leibnitz's Step Reckoner were used for the next thirty hundred years, until cheap computer began to appear.

An abacus

 

The Step Reckoner

Tasks

I read the text. Are these true (T) or false (F)? Correct the sentences where it is necessary.

1. Around 1900 to 1800 BC, the Chinese invented a new way to count which used place values.

2. Computers don’t use place values when they do calculations.

3. An Abacus can be very fast, it is a really machine because it does calculations automatically.

4. In 1460, the French mathematician Blaze Pascal made a Difference Engine.

5. Leibnitz’s machine was called the Step Reckoner.

II Put four questions to the text

III Put these sentences in the right order:

1. In the seventeenth century, people began to build calculating machines.

2. Leibnitz’s machine, called the Step Reckoner, could do more difficult calculations than Pascal’s Arithmetic Machine.

3. For thousands of years, humans have needed to count.

4. Between 1000 and 500 BC, the Babylonians invented the abacus.

5. The Sumerians had three different

IV Read Chapter I and II. Then complete the sentences with the words and phrases below.

In 1642/ in the 1940s and 1950s/ in the nineteenth century/ about three thousand years ago/ every day.

1. The Industrial Age started ……

2. Many people use computers …….

3. The first computers were built …..

4. The abacus was invented …..

5. A French mathematician made an Arithmetic machine …..

 

V Translate the text

VI Write the annotation to the text.

 

UNIT 3

The first computers

The word 'computer' used to mean a person, not a machine. In the nineteenth century, builders and technicians needed to know the answers to very difficult calculations in order to do their work. They did not have time to do these calculations themselves, so they bought books of answers. The people who did the calculations and wrote the books were called computers. In the 1820s, a British mathematician called Charles Babbage invented a machine that did very difficult calculations automatically. He called machine a Difference Engine. He began to build his machine, but did not finish it because he had a better idea. (Babbage never finished anything – he always had a better idea and started working on something new.) In fact, more than a hundred and fifty years later, some technicians from the Science Museum in London built Babbage's Difference Engine.

The difference Engine

Charles Babbage

 

It is still in the museum today. The machine weighs about three tonnes, and it is nearly two metres tall and three metres wide.

And it works: in the early 1990s, it did a calculation and gave the right answer – 31 digits long! Babbage did not finish making the Difference Engine because he started work on a machine called an Analytical Engine. The Analytical Engine could do more: for example, it had a kind of memory. This meant that it was possible to write programs for it, building on each answer and doing more and more difficult calculations. For this reason, the Analytical Engine is often seen as the first real computer. However, Babbage never finished building this machine either!

A woman called Ada Lovelace worked with Babbage. She was the daughter of Lord Byron, a famous English writer. Ada was an excellent mathematician and understood Babbage's ideas (most people did not). She

knew that she could do amazing calculations with the Analytical Machine, and she wrote a program

for it. Although the machine was never built, Ada Lovelace was still the first computer programmer in the world. In 1979, a modern computer programming language was named ADA.

Babbage's ideas were ahead of their time.

Slowly, over the next one hundred years, inventors began to build better calculating machines. One of the best inventors of the 1930s was a German called Konrad Zuse. In 1938, he built his first machine, the Z1, in his parents' living room in Berlin. His later machines, the Z3 and Z4, were like modern computers in many ways. They used only two digits (0 and 1) to do all the calculations. Also, Zuse wrote programs for his machines by making holes in old cinema film. When he put the film through the machines, they could “read” the programs and do very long and difficult calculations.

Tasks

I Answer the following questions:

1. What did the word “computer” used to mean?

2. Who invented a Difference Engine?

3. Who build the Difference Engine?

4. Who wrote a program for the Analytical Machine?

5. In what way did Konrad Zuse write programs for his machines?

6. What could Zuse machines do?

 

II Put the sentences in the right order:

1. In 1938 Konrad Zuse built his first machine, the Z1, in his parents’ living room in Berlin.

2. Ada Lovelace was the daughter of Lord Byron.

3. Babbage never finished his Analytical Engine.

4. Charles Babbage invented a Difference Engine.

5. Ada Lovelace was still the first computer programmer in the world.

6. Zuse wrote programs for his machines by making holes in old cinema film.

 

III Translate the text.