Key Words and Expressions

mechanical[mi'kænikəl] a. 机械的，力学的，呆板的

calculate['kælkjuleit] v. 计算，考虑，计划

punch[pʌntʃ] card 穿孔卡片

general-purpose['dʒenərəl'pə:pəs] a. 一般用途的，多用途的

mainframe['meinfreim] n. 主机

column['kɔləm] n. 柱，圆柱；柱形物，专栏，[计算机]列

vacuum tube  ['vækjuəm] [tju:b]  真空管；电子管，软管，隧道

capacitor[kə'pæsitə] n. 电容器

graphical['græfikəl] a. 图解的(绘图的，生动的)

palmtop[pɑ:mtɔp] n. 掌上型电脑

laptop[læptɔp] n. 膝上型便携式电脑

interact[intə'rækt] v. 相互作用，相互影响

manipulate[mə'nipjuleit] v. 操纵，利用，假造，[计算机]操作

ballistic[bə‘listik] a. 弹道的

Computer Overview

 I think most people will agree that one of the greatest inventions in the 20th century is the computer. Such a device that changes the way we work, live, entertain and so on.The computer has changed nearly every aspect of people lives for the better.

 In fact Mechanical Calculating aids have been existence for thousands of years. An early example would be an abacus in use in China as much as five thousand years ago. But the electronic computer has been around for only a half-century.Now let us look some bigevents or milestone in the development of electronic computer. 

   1.  Mechanical Beginnings

   2. The First Digital Electronic Computer:ABC

   3. The First General-Purpose Electronic Computer: ENIAC

   4.  The First GUI (Graphical UserInterface)

   5.  PC (Personal Computer)

   As computers became more wide spread in the workplace, new ways to harness their potential developed. As smaller computers became more powerful, they could be linked together, or networked, to share memory space, software, and information. Networked computers allowed individual computers to form electronic co-ops.

   More details about computer hardware and software can be found in other parts of this book.

[1] Punched cards (also marked cards) arestill in use gathering input data for computers. You may recall the debacle in Florida during the 2000 presidential election where improperly-punched votingcards caused problems with the vote counting.

穿孔卡片(标记卡片)仍然用于为计算机收集输入的数据。你可能会回想起2000年在佛罗里达州举行的总统选举的尴尬场面，就是由于穿孔选票卡不正确而引起的选票计算出错。

[2] ENIAC was originally built to calculate ballistic tables for the US military.

ENIAC最初是为美国军队计算弹道表而建。

[3] ENIAC was a monster of a machine,filling a large room and weighing 30 tons. It included 18,000 vacuum tubes andused 200 kilowatts of electrical power.

ENIAC是一个庞大的机器怪物。它占满了一个大房间且重达30吨，包含了18000个电子管，耗电200千瓦。

[4] Later computers were much more flexible because they incorporated the idea of stored programs, conceived in1945 by mathematician John Von Neumann (who worked on the Manhattan Project inLos Alamos).

后来的计算机变得更具灵活性了，因为它们开始采用存储程序的思想，该思想是1945年由数学家约翰·冯·诺依曼提出的(他在洛斯阿拉莫斯的曼哈顿项目部工作)。

[5] Ten years later, 65 million PCs were being used. Now the PCs have entered into ordinary families. Computers continued their trend toward a smaller size, working their way down from desktop to laptop computers to palmtop.

10年后，有6500万台个人电脑投入使用。现在个人电脑已经进入了普通家庭。计算机的发展趋于小型化，从台式电脑到笔记本电脑再到掌上电脑。