128. Какие биографические факты из жизни изобретателя телефона приве­дены в тексте?

129. Какие другие факты, кроме приведенных, вы знаете об изобретателе телефона?

130. Что нового вы узнали из текста? Соотнесите факты, относящиеся к истории развития телефонной связи, со следующими датами: 1877 г. И 1915 г.

Telephone

Alexander Graham Bell never planned to be an inventor, he wanted to be a musician or a teacher of deaf people (глухих). The subjects that he studied at school included music, art, literature, Latin and Greek. They did not include German which all scientists used in their books. Alexander's mother was a painter and a musi­cian. His father was a well-known teacher of deaf people.

When Alexander was only sixteen, he became a teacher in boy's school in Scotland. He liked teaching there, but he still wanted to become a teacher of deaf people as his father.

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He read all the books about sound that he could find and started to work on some of his own experiments.

At twenty five Alexander became interested in finding a way to send human voice through an electric wire. The parents of his pu­pils contributed money for the equipment. He found an assistant, Tom Watson, who worked in an electrical shop. For two years Tom and Alexander were working together to build a machine that peo­ple could use to talk to one another over long distances. After two years, the two young men were becoming discouraged (опустились руки). Then, one day, when they were working on a new transmit­ter Alexander spilled some acid (пролить кислоту) on himself. Tom Watson, who was alone in another room, heard a voice. The voice was coming through a wire to a receiver on the table! The voice was Alexander Bell's! It was saying: «Come here, Mr. Wat­son. I need you!»

The first telephone line was built in Germany in 1877. By 1915 a telephone line was opened in the United States — 5,440 kilome­ters from New York to San Francisco.

Now design bureaus all over the world are conducting experi­ments to develop video-phone or picture phone. A young man in Moscow wants to speak to his friend in Vladivostok. He lifts his telephone receiver, dials a number. After a very short time his friend answers. As he picks up his receiver, his picture appears on the screen. They can speak to each other face to face because they are using a new kind of telephone which may be called «a video-phone». In addition to the usual telephone, the equipment includes a small television screen (14 cm by 13 cm) and, combined with the screen, a television camera. The camera tube will allow the user to switch from a wide view of the room to the face of the per­son speaking. The focus can be changed to give clear pictures of objects 0.3,0.9 and 6.0 meters away from the camera. There is also a mirror attachment, which allows the camera to scan documents which may be lying on the table. The camera adjusts itself auto­matically to different lighting conditions.

Text4D

Прочитайте и перескажите текст.

Talking via Space

Communication has come a long way from the time when an In­dian beat a drum (барабан) in the forest to the time when a scientist receives messages from a satellite. In this space age communication has become a highly developed field. The system of communica-

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tion in large countries is unthinkable today without space satellites. Besides large distances, there is a great time difference: the territo­ries of some countries comprise up to 11 zones. Satellites help to minimize all the difficulties that may appear. They rapidly transmit TV and radio programs to different towns, cities, and distant areas.

Space systems and electronic technology have made it possible to set up an automatic system of communication designed for rapid transmission of all kinds of information.

People write letters and send telegrams. But at the same time people living in various cities like to exchange (обмениваться) news on the telephone. Statistics reports that the number of long­distance telephone calls is about 2, 000 million per year. A person in Moscow talking on the phone with Vladivostok must know that this conversation is carried on through a satellite.

Trains and cars can use mobile radio telephones to make calls. Businessmen can use fax machines which provide electronic trans­mission of documents and messages over telephone lines. Even photographs can be sent and received over telephone wires.

Practically all the population in large countries can watch TV via satellites. The orbital communication systems make it possible for people from different continents to see and hear one another.

The importance of space means of communication is increasing every year. The communication satellites of the international orga­nization «INTERSAT» enable people to keep reliable telephone, telegraph, telex and fax communication in any weather with ships practically in every part of the World Ocean.

ДОПОЛНИТЕЛЬНЫЕ ЗАДАНИЯ

Упражнение 1. А. Прочитайте следующие выражения из текста 4А и по­старайтесь догадаться о значении выделенных слов и словосочетаний.

131. TV sets began coming off factory assembly lines

132. on people's life and way of thinking

133. it weighed less than a pound

134. the desired channel

135. when you are occupied

В. Подберите к каждому выделенному слову или словосочетанию соот­ветствующее ему по значению.

a. unit of weight

b. programme

c. busy with smth.

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d. where parts of large machines are put together in mass pro­ duction

e. the way you think

Упражнение 2. Найдите в тексте слова cell, network, area, set и выберите правильное значение.

A cellular phone (cellphone) is a lightweight, portable radio transceiver, which can transmit and receive telephone calls any­where in cellular network area. It is a mobile telephone, which communicates through base stations situated in areas called cells. Cell is a subdivision of communication area in a cellphone net­work. In the network, the same frequencies can be used for many different telephone calls at the same time. Each cell has its own small electronic base station and set of transmission frequencies. The sizes of the cell vary between 1 km to about 30 km across, de­pending on the output power of the cellphone transmitter.

1. cell

136. a small room for one person

137. apparatus for producing electricity by chemical action

138. a compartment in a larger structure (e.g., in a honeycomb)

2. network

139. a system of lines that cross

140. a complex system of interconnected radio and TV devices

141. a connected system

3. area

142. a zone, region, district

143. surface measure

144. range of activity

4. set

145. a number of smth. of the same kind

146. radio, TV, phone apparatus

147. direction

Упражнение 3. Подберите к глаголам и словосочетаниям в колонке А глаголы с тем же значением из колонки В.

А

148. link up to

149. exchange news

150. send a signal, message, fax

151. show

152. take the place of

153. have, possess

154. make it illegible

155. have

В

a. contain

b. connect с replace

d. make it difficult and impos­ sible to read

e. own

f. communicate

g. transmit h. indicate

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Упражнение 4. Замените выделенное слово или словосочетание другим словом с тем же значением.

156. A Fax system can now send texts, graphics and documents to several places at the same time in less than a minute. The informa­tion may have photographic images as well as words. The latest Fax machines must be linked up to a special digital phone line. A few seconds' interference (помехи) on the phone line can make several lines of a document or text illegible.

157. Digital systems of information transmission have taken the place of analog systems in the last 25 years.

158. Most phones now have memories to store frequently used numbers. Some telephone manufacturers make phones with LCDs (liquid-crystal displays) which show the duration of calls.

159. Before World War II few people had television sets.

160. A lot of people have cellphones, answerphones and mobile phones now.

161. It is possible to exchange news with people in most parts of the world by telephone.

Упражнение 5. Заполните пропуски глаголами connect, transmit, communi­cate и их производными.

162. A small radio receiver called a radiopager makes it possible for people to ... with each other wherever they are.

163. Data ... services, known as teletext... text and graphics over a long distance as part of the television video signal.

164. In telecommunication the information can be directed be­tween ... and receivers by cables of various kinds.

165. The lines which ... telephones within a building are the simplest type of... line.

166. Mobile phone systems normally do not... directly with other mobile phones. They send messages to the control base station.

167. How long will the ... of the new telephone take?

168. You can now ... your computer to computers all over the world by means of the Internet.

Упражнение 6. А. Назовите 10—15 слов и словосочетаний на тему «Means of communication».

8. Speak about:

Your favourite TV programmes at the moment.

Do you often watch football match live (as it happens) on TV or do you watch recorded highlights (parts of the game after it has been played)? Do you enjoy watching the commercials (the advertise­ments in programmes)? Do you watch satellite TV and/or cable TV?

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