The Linguistic Culture-2 (british media) (1157929), страница 32
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Jobs told his friend Woz about it, and the two designed thegame in record time, working four nights and days, and were paid the promised $700 for it. Thisexperience showed them that they could work together on a tough project and succeed.When the Homebrew Computer Club came into existence, Wozniak began attending itsmeetings. There he met people who shared his love for computers and exchanged the technicalexpertise.
Soon after, Chuck Peddle at MOS Tech released his new 6502 microprocessor chip foronly $20, which was a sensation compared to the usual price of $400. Suddenly, Woz saw hischance and decided to write the first BASIC for it, which was the most spread programminglanguage. After finishing with the BASIC, he made a computer for it to run on. The otherhobbyists at Homebrew were impressed by Wozniak’s kit, which actually was a board with chipsand interfaces for a keyboard and a video monitor.The breakthrough for the two Steves came in July, when Paul Terrell ordered 50 Applesfor his Byte Shop, however on condition the computers were fully assembled in a case andequipped with a cassette interface to enable external data storage.
Working hard in Job`s parent’sgarage they managed to construct the 50 Apples within those 30 days.The Apple I was continuously refined by Wozniak, and its sales made the youngcompany known, partly because the company’s name appeared on top of computers lists, whichwere published by electronics magazines in alphabetical order. By the time the first Apple wasbeing sold, Steve Wozniak had already begun working on another computer, the Apple II.
Thismachine had several special features, which had not appeared in any microcomputer before andwould make it the milestone product that would usher in the age of personal computer.Steve Job’s persistency persuaded Wozniak to build up a company. In 1979, DanielFylstra, a programmer from Boston, released VisiCalc for the Apple 11. This spreadsheet was anovelty in computer software. It relieved business calculations considerably and could be used todo financial forecasting. It was the first application that made personal computers a practical toolfor people who do not know how to write their own programs.
VisiCalc was very successful andcontributed to the skyrocketing of the Apple 11.The same year Mike Markkula made another important decision for Apple futuregrowth. His idea was to create a new market in the field of education and schools. The AppleEducation Foundation was established, which granted complete Apple systems equipped withlearning software to schools. This market should account for a major part of the company’s salesin the subsequent years, since Apple 11 soon became the most popular machine forstudents.Apple remains the second-biggest personal computer manufacturer after IBM and hasreleased innovative products such as Quick Time, easy to use multimedia software combiningsound, video and animation.
Its further development is Newton, a personal digital assistant(PDA), which serves as an electronic notepad and “integrates advanced hand-writingrecognition, communication and data-management technologies”.Practically at the same time a graduate student of Stanford University AndyBechtolsheim conceived and designed the Sun workstationfor the Stanford UniversityNetwork communication project..In February 1982 he together with Vinod Khosia, and ScottMcNealy founded Sun Microsystems ( Stanford University Network) and started initial publicofferings in 1986 under the stock symbol SUNW, changed in 2007 to JAVA;At present Sun holds the patent of the widely used Java Development language and offerscertification and support to the Java development community. The company makes networkcomputing products such as workstations, servers, storage systems, network switches, software,microprocessors, and provides associated services and support with its mission to connecteveryone, everywhere via sun solutions.The founder and leader of Microsoft Corporation.
William Henry Gates was born inthe family of upper middle class businessman in Seattle. He went to Lakeside Prep. School,where he was first introduced to computers. At that time, computers were still too bulky andexpensive for the school to purchase their own ones, but the school made agreements withvarious companies that allowed its students to use the computers. Bill Gates, his friend PaulAllen and a handful of other students took up computing. They read books on computers, triedto write programs, hack the systems, alter and crash the files. Soon Bill and his friends wereinvited by the computer company to find bugs and explore weaknesses in the system.
Accordingto Gates, “ the boys used their time eating, drinking, and breathing computers”. When thecompany that was hiring the group went out of business in 1970, the boys were soon hired byInformation Sciences Inc. to write a program for the payroll. Later they were also contracted byother computer firms to find bugs and fix them.In 1973 Gates was enrolled to Harvard University as a prelaw student, though he spentmost of the time programming in the campus computer center. A year later his friend Paul Allenshowed Bill the picture of the first personal microcomputer on the cover of a magazine ”PopularElectronics” along with a lengthy article. They both realized that their “star time” had come – thehome PC business was about to explode and needed software for the machines. Gates arranged ameeting with the Altair manufacturers and by the time of the appointment Gates and Allen hadalready got the program Basic Interpreter– the result of their feverish night work.
They soldthe program and licensed it to their first customer MITS.After Bill Gates had dropped out of Harvard, Paul Allen also left MITS ( where he wasinvited to the position of the Director of Software) to devote the time completely to their newjoint company “Microsoft”( 1977). The company went through some rough first years, comingout with its second programming languages FORTRAN and third COBOL In 1980 Microsoftreleased the Z-80 Soft Card, announced an interactive, multi-user, multi-tasking system XENIXOIS, compatible with the programs written for UNIX OS.In 1981 Microsoft became a great corporation with Bill Gates as President and Chairmanof the Board, and Paul Allen as Executive Vice President in the State of Washington, introducedits PC, multi-feature word processing program, Microsoft Word for MS-DOS1.0 and theMicrosoft Mouse.In 1984 Microsoft took the leading role in developing software for the Apple Macintosh,created a new Hardware and Peripheral Division and announced their new personal computer,the IBM PC AT.
When in August 1985 Microsoft celebrated its 10 th anniversary it alreadyPPemployed 1.442 workers and had expanded its growing empire to Europe.In 1995 Gates knew that the Internet was the next area of focus, and the course ofMicrosoft shifted dramatically. The popular Internet Explorer browser soon became a bestsellar.By the time of the company’s 20 th anniversary Microsoft had reported revenues of $2.02 billionPPdollars for the first quarter of fiscal year and counted more than 525,000 members. It hadreleased the final version of Microsoft Internet Explorer 2.0 for Windows 95.Two newbusinesses were created. One of them was a 24 hour news and information cable televisionchannel.
The other is an interactive news service distributed on MSN. In 1998 MicrosoftWindows 98 was announced and in 2000 Microsoft Windows 2000 NT became available.For many consumers Microsoft has become synonymous with the terms “PCComputer” and “Internet”.1.Answer the questions.1.What does the name “Silicon Valley” first of all mean to you?2.Which part did Stanford University play in the story of the Silicon Valley?3. Where was the first microprocessor designed?4. Who were the three scientists awarded with the Nobel Prize for the inventions in computertechnology?5. What is the situation with Microsoft now? Which are the main fields of Bill Gates’ interestlately?2.
Render the text in English: Технический прогресс на лоне природы.Несколько десятилетий тому назад округ Санта-Клара в Калифорнии представлял собойтихий уголок: сплошные фруктовые сады, апельсины, сливы, вишни. Теперь же здесьукоренилисьновыеотраслиамериканскойпромышленности.Вэтомрайонесконцентрировано около восьмисот компаний, занимающихся разработкой новыхтехнологий, а также многочисленные фирмы, связанные с обслуживанием и снабжениемпервых.
В результате округ превратился в самое густое в мире скопление недавнопоявившихся отраслей промышленности.ОкругСанта-Кларарасполагаетвсемипреимуществами,которыенужныпредпринимателям, чтобы преуспеть: здесь живут и работают тысячи людей, имеющихвысокую квалификацию и хорошо знающих новую технологию; здесь же немалофинансистов и промышленников, готовых вложить деньги в осуществление любоймногообещающей идеи.Почти все эти компании расположены на территории, имеющей форму треугольника,высотой в 40 километров и с основанием в 15 километров у юго-западного побережьяСан-Францисcкого залива.Стольисследовательскихфирмнаизобретательскойдеятельности,густаянебольшойконцентрациятерриториибеспрецедентныймногочисленныхвызвалавнастоящийисториинаучновзрывамериканскойпромышленности. Применяя технологию, которой еще несколько лет назад несуществовало, фирмы разрабатывали то, что раньше казалось сказкой.Одной из таких удивительных рождающих идеи компаний стали «Шокли транзистор» и«Фэрчайлд семикондактор».
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