Изобретения и изобретатели. Учебно-справочное пособие для изучающих английский язык - страница 8

Early computer keyboards were first adapted from the punch card and teletype technologies. In 1946, the Eniac computer used a punched card reader as its input and output device. In 1948, the Binac computer used an electromechanically controlled typewriter to both input data directly onto magnetic tape (for feeding the computer data) and to print results. The emerging electric typewriter further improved the technological marriage between the typewriter and the computer.

Earlier computer keyboards had been based either on teletype machines or keypunches. There were many electromechanical steps in transmitting data between the keyboard and the computer that slowed things down. With VDT (Video Display Terminal) technology and electric keyboards, the keyboard’s keys could now send electronic impulses directly to the computer and save time. By the late ’70s and early ’80s, all computers used electronic keyboards and VDTs. Nevertheless, the layout of the computer keyboard still owes its origin to the inventor of the first typewriter, Christopher Latham Sholes who also invented the QWERTY layout.

QWERTY стандартная клавиатура с буквами Q-W-E-R-T-Y в верхнем ряду. (Определяет для английского языка стандартное расположение клавиш на клавиатуре.)

Punch card перфокарта

Keypunch клавишный перфоратор

Keyboard клавиатура

Teletype телетайп

ENIAC, Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator электронный цифровой интегратор и калькулятор

BINAC (BINary Automatic) computer сдвоенный автоматизированный компьютер

MULTICS MULTiplexed Information and Computing System информационно-вычислительная система с мультиплексированием каналов передачи данных

a. Arrange the following inventions in chronological order:

Computer keyboard, typewriter, teletype machine, keypunch, adding machine, punched card, VDT, electronic keyboard,

b. Fill in the blanks in the table.

a. Describe the history of the keyboard. Use “Comprehension” section as a support.

b. Describe the operations you should use when working with the modern keyboard.

Discuss the problem of improving the design of the modern keyboard.

Telephone is an instrument that is designed for the simultaneous transmission and reception of the human voice. Inexpensive, simple to operate, and offering its user a personal type of communication that cannot be obtained through the written word, the telephone has become the most widely used telecommunications device. Hundreds of millions of telephone sets are in use throughout the world.