1. Match the questions (a-f) with the numbered spaces (1-6) from the text.

a) What do I need in order to use the Internet?

b)What exactly is the Internet?

c) How do I 'surf the net'?

d)That's the same thin gas the Web, isn't it?

5. What can I use the Internet for?

6. What is a web site, and how do I visit one?

2. Mark the statements as t (true) or f (false).

1. The Internet was started in 1990. The Internet links computers.

To visit a web site, you simply enter the telephone number. The main vise of the Internet is to find mistakes. To use the Internet, we need a computer and a modem.

2.Using the Internet is getting more expensive.

Virtual Reality

Not long ago computers were considered an amazing invention. Today they form part of our everyday life. The latest thing today is Virtual Reality. A Virtual Reality system can transport the user to exotic locations such as a beach in Hawaii or the inside of the human body. The Virtual Reality sys tern is still in the early stages of its development. At the moment it is necessary to put a large helmet on your head to see the simulated world and you have to wear a special glove on your hand in order to manipulate the objects you see there. Lenses and two miniature display screens inside the helmet create the illusion that the screen surrounds you on every side, You can «look behind» computer — generated objects, pick them up and examine them, walk around and see things from a different angle.

Already today virtual reality is used in medicine. In hospitals, surgeons could plan operations by first «travelling» through the brain, heart or lungs without damaging the body. It is also used in police training schools. In schools pupils could explore the Great Pyramid or study molecules from the inside. Developers of Virtual Reality say its potential is powerful.

The word which comes closest to describing Virtual Reality is «simulator». Virtual Reality technology resembles the flight simulators that are used to train pilots. But of course there are dangers as well as benefits. In the wrong hands Virtual Reality can be used for power fantasies and pornography.

Answer the questions ?

1. What is stage of the development of virtual reality?

2. Where can a Virtual Reality system transport the user?

3. What is necessary to see the simulated world?

4. Where is virtual reality used today?

The Development of Computers in Ukraine

The government and the authorities had paid serious attention to the development of the computer industry right after the Second World War. The leading bodies considered this task to be one of the principal for the national economy. Up to the beginning of the 1950s there were only small productive capacities which specialized in the producing accounting and account-perforating (punching) machines. The electronic numerical computer engineering was only arising and the productive capacities for it were close to the naught. The first serious steps in the development of production base were made initially in the late 1950s when the work on creating the first industry samples of the electronic counting machines was finished and there were created M-20, Ural-1, Minsk-1, which together with their semi-conductor successors (M-220, UraH1-14, Minsk-22 andMinsk-32) created in the 1960s were the main ones in the USSR until the computers of the third generation were put into the serial production, that is until the early 1970s. In the 1960s the science-research and assembling base was enlarged. As the result of this measures, all researches connected with creating and putting into the serial production of semi-conductor electronic computing machines were almost finished. That allowed to stop the production of the first generation machines beginning from the 1964. Next decades the whole branch of the computer engineering had been created. The important steps were undertaken to widen the productive capacities for the 3d generation machines.

Answer the questions ?

1. When were the first steps in the development of electronic machine ?

2. What electronic machines were created in Ukraine?

3. When were the third generation’s computers put into the serial production?

The Development of Computers in the USA

Until the late 1970s, the computer was viewed as a massive machine that was useful to big business and big government but not to the general public. Computers were too cumbersome and expensive for private use, and most people were intimidated by them. As technology advanced, this was changed by a distinctive group of engineers and entrepreneurs who rushed to improve the designs of then current technology and to find ways to make the computer attractive to more people. Although these innovators of computer technology were very different from each other, they had a common enthusiasm for technical innovation and the capacity to foresee the potential of computers. This was a very competitive and stressful time, and the only people who succeeded were the ones who were able to combine extraordinary engineering expertise with progressive business skills and an ability to foresee the needs of the future.

Much of this activity was centered in the Silicon Valley Hi northern California where the first computer-related company had located in 1955. That company attracted thousands of related businesses, and the area became known as the technological capital of the world. Between 1981 and 1986, more than 1000 new technology-oriented businesses started there. At the busiest times, five or more, new companies started in a single week. The Silicon Valley attracted many risk-takers and gave them an opportunity to thrive in an atmosphere where creativity was expected and rewarded.

Robert Noyce was a risk-taker who was successful both as an engineer and as an entrepreneur. The son of an Iowa minister, he was informal, genuine, and methodical. Even when he was running one of the most successful businesses in the Silicon Valley, he dressed informally and his office was an open cubicle that looked like everyone else's, A graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), he started working for one of the first computer-related businesses in 1955. While working with these pioneers of computer engineering, he learned many things about computers and business management.

As an engineer, he co-invented the integrated circuit, which was the basis for later computer design. This integrated circuit was less than an eighth of an inch square but had the same power as a transistor unit that was over 15 inches square or a vacuum tube Unit that was 6.5 feet square.' As a businessman, Noyce co-founded Intel, one of the most successful companies in the Silicon Valley and the first company to introduce the microprocessor. The microprocessor chip became the heart of the computer, making it possible for a large computer system that once filled an entire room to be contained on a small chip that could be held in one's hand .(JTie directors of Intel could not have anticipated the effects that the microprocessor would have on the world. It made possible the invention of the personal computer and eventually led to the birth of thousands of new businesses. Noyce's contributions to the development of the integrated circuit and the microprocessor earned him both wealth and fame before his death in 1990. In fact, many people consider his role to be one of re most significant in the Silicon Valley story.

The two men who first introduced the personal computer (PC) to the marketplace had backgrounds jrtfke Robert Noyce's. They had neither prestigious university education nor experience in big business. Twenty-year-old Steven Jobs and twenty-four-year-old Stephen Wozniak were college' drop-outs who had elaborated on their first project as computer hobbiests in a local computer club. Built in the garage of Jobs's parents, this first personal computer utilized the technology of Noyce's integrated circuit. It was typewriter-sized, as powerful as a much larger computer, and inexpensive to build. To Wozniak the new machine was a gadget to share with other members of their computer club. To Jobs, however, it was a product with great marketing potential for homes and small businesses. To raise the $1300 needed to fill their first orders Jobs sold his Volkswagen bus and Wozniak sold his scientific calculator. Wozniak built and delivered the first order of 100 computers in ten days Lacking funds, he was forced to use the least expensive.

Answer the questions ?

1. What is the silicon valley in Northern California?

2. What was Robert Noyce?

3. Who founded Intel?

4. What is the heart of the computer?

5. Who first introduced the personal computer?

Computers Catch Criminals

Chief Inspector Harston talks about ways in which computers can help the police fight crime. Members of the public often think of detective work as fast and exciting when most of It is slow and boring.

For example a detective on a stolen car case may have to check through long lists of information, and in the time it takes him to do this the thief may well escape. With the new National Police Computer we are now able to find out details of car ownership and driving licenses in a fraction of the time it takes by traditional methods. We are also developing systems of storing fingerprint information in computers and even information about people's appearance. It's possible to work out codes for visual details and to link a computer with a videotape recorder (VTR). Then, instead of looking through books of photographs we'll be able to ask the computer to sort out the right ones, and see photographs of suspects flashed across a VTR screen. In police work speed is often essential, so computers are ideal for helping us catch criminals. The only problem is that we now have a new kind of criminal — the very-clever man who knows how to make huge sums of money by cheating a computer, and he is very difficult indeed to catch.

Answer the questions ?

1. What do the public often think of detective work ?

2. How can National Police Computer help the police?

3. What information can computer store

Famous Computer Companies