Иностранный язык.

VARIANT 2.




1. Read and translate the text

Let's have a look at the history of computers. The first general-purpose electronic digital computer came out in the USA in 1946. It was called ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer). ENIAC contained about 18,000 vacuum tubes, weighed more than 30 tons, occupied more than 1,500 square feet of floor space, and con¬sumed 150 kilowatts of electricity during operation. The first-gene¬ration computer performed about 5,000 additions and 1,000 multi¬plications per second and was slow in comparison with mode
machines. In the late 1950s the second generation of computers appeared and these performed work ten times faster than the first computers. The reason for this extra speed was the use of transistors instead of vacuum tubes. The third-generation computers appeared in 1965. They performed a million calculations per second, which was 1000 times as many as first-generation computers. Now tiny inte¬grated circuits controlled computers.
By the late 1960s many large businesses depended on computers. Many companies linked their computers into networks and that made it possible for different offices to share information. During this time computer technology improved rapidly. In the 1970s there appeared a microprocessor. And in 1975 American engineers devised the first personal computer, Altair. Millions of individuals, families and schools began to use PCs.
Present-day computers complete millions of instructions per sec¬ond. Some experts predict that a new generation of intelligent machines will process data with the help of beams of laser light, rather than electric current. They say that these computers will store data on individual molecules and that virtual reality will play a large role in education.

2. Answer the questions

1. When did the first generation of computers appear?
2. The first-generation computers used vacuum tubes, didn't they?
3. What did the second-generation computers use...