Беликова Е.К., Саратовская Л.Б. - The United Kingdom and United States of America in Past and Present (1268141), страница 39
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VisiCalc wasvery successful and contributed to the skyrocketing of the Apple 11. Thesame year Mike Markula made another important decision for Applefuture growth. His idea was to create a new market in the field ofeducation and schools.
The Apple Education Foundation wasestablished, which granted complete Apple systems equipped withlearning software to schools. This market should account for a major partof the company’s sales in the subsequent years, since Apple 11 soonbecame the most popular machine for students. Apple remains thesecond-biggest personal computer manufacturer after IBM and hasreleased innovative products such as Quick Time, easy to use multimediasoftware combining sound, video and animation. Its further developmentis Newton, a personal digital assistant (PDA), which serves as anelectronic notepad and “integrates advanced hand-writing recognition,communication and data-management technologies”.Practically at the same time a graduate student of Stanford UniversityAndy Bechtolsheim conceived and designed the Sun workstation forthe Stanford University Network communication project.
In February1982 he together with Vinod Khosia, and Scott McNealy founded SunMicrosystems ( Stanford University Network) and started initial publicofferings in 1986 under the stock symbol SUNW, changed in 2007 toJAVA.At present Sun holds the patent of the widely used Java Developmentlanguage and offers certification and support to the Java developmentcommunity. The company makes network computing products such asworkstations, servers, storage systems, network switches, software,microprocessors, and provides associated services and support with itsmission to connect everyone, everywhere via sun solutions.The founder and leader of Microsoft Corporation, William HenryGates was born in the family of upper middleclass businessman in Seattle.
He went toLakeside Prep. School, where he wasintroduced to computers for the first time.. Atthat time, computers were still too bulky andexpensive for the school to purchase their ownones, but the school made agreements withvarious companies that allowed its students touse the computers. Bill Gates, his friend Paul Allen and a handful of other153students took up computing. They read books on computers, tried towrite programs, hack the systems, alter and crash the files. Soon Bill andhis friends were invited by the computer company to find bugs andexplore weaknesses in the system. According to Gates, the boys usedtheir time eating, drinking, and breathing computers”.
When the companythat was hiring the group went out of business in 1970, the boys weresoon hired by Information Sciences Inc. to write a program for thepayroll. Later they were also contracted by other computer firms to findbugs and fix them.In 1973 Gates was enrolled to Harvard University as a prelaw student,though he spent most of the time programming in the campus computercenter. A year later his friend Paul Allen showed Bill the picture of thefirst personal microcomputer on the cover of a magazine ”PopularElectronics” along with a lengthy article.
They both realized that their“star time” had come – the home PC business was about to explode andneeded software for the machines. Gates arranged a meeting with theAltair manufacturers and by the time of the appointment Gates and Allenhad already got the program Basic Interpreter – the result of theirfeverish night work. They sold the program and licensed it to their firstcustomer MITS.After Bill Gates had dropped out of Harvard, Paul Allen also left MITS(where he was invited to the position of the Director of Software) todevote the time completely to their new joint company “Microsoft”(1977). The company went through some rough first years, coming outwith its second programming languages FORTRAN and third COBOLIn 1980 Microsoft released the Z-80 Soft Card, announced an interactive,multi-user, multi-tasking system XENIX OIS, compatible with theprograms written for UNIX OS.In 1981 Microsoft became a great corporation with Bill Gates asPresident and Chairman of the Board, and Paul Allen as Executive VicePresident in the State of Washington, introduced its PC, multi-featureword processing program, Microsoft Word for MS-DOS1.0 and theMicrosoft Mouse.
In 1984 Microsoft took the leading role in developingsoftware for the Apple Macintosh, created a new Hardware andPeripheral Division and announced their new personal computer, theIBM PC AT. When in August 1985 Microsoft celebrated its 10PthPanniversary it already employed 1.442 workers and had expanded itsgrowing empire to Europe.154In 1995 Gates knew that the Internet was the next area of focus, andthe course of Microsoft shifted dramatically.
The popular InternetExplorer browser soon became a bestseller. By the time of the company’s20PthP anniversary Microsoft had reported revenues of $2.02 billiondollars for the first quarter of fiscal year and counted more than 525,000members. It had released the final version of Microsoft Internet Explorer2.0 for Windows 95.Two new businesses were created. One of them wasa 24 hour news and information cable television channel. The other is aninteractive news service distributed on MSN.
In 1998 MicrosoftWindows 98 was announced and in 2000 Microsoft Windows 2000 NTbecame available.For many consumers Microsoft has becomesynonymous with the terms “PC Computer” and “Internet”.1. Answer the questions: 1. What does the name “Silicon Valley” first of allmean to you? 2. Which part did Stanford University play in the story of theSilicon Valley? 3. Where was the first microprocessor designed? 4. Who werethe three scientists awarded with the Nobel Prize for the inventions in computertechnology? 5. What is the situation with Microsoft now? Which are the mainfields of Bill Gates’ interest lately?2.
Render the text in English: Технический прогресс на лонеприроды. Несколько десятилетий тому назад округ Санта-Клара вКалифорнии представлял собой тихий уголок: сплошные фруктовые сады,апельсины, сливы, вишни. Теперь же здесь укоренились новые отраслиамериканской промышленности. В этом районе сконцентрировано околовосьмисот компаний, занимающихся разработкой новых технологий, атакже многочисленные фирмы, связанные с обслуживанием и снабжениемпервых. В результате округ превратился в самое густое в мире скоплениенедавно появившихся отраслей промышленности. Округ Санта-Кларарасполагает всеми преимуществами, которые нужны предпринимателям,чтобы преуспеть: здесь живут и работают тысячи людей, имеющихвысокую квалификацию и хорошо знающих новую технологию; здесь женемало финансистов и промышленников, готовых вложить деньги восуществление любой многообещающей идеи.Почти все эти компании расположены на территории, имеющей формутреугольника, высотой в 40 километров и с основанием в 15 километров уюго-западного побережья Сан-францисского залива.
Столь густаяконцентрация многочисленных научно-исследовательских фирм нанебольшой территории вызвала настоящий взрыв изобретательскойдеятельности, беспрецедентный в истории американской промышленности.Применяя технологию, которой еще несколько лет назад не существовало,фирмы разрабатывали то, что раньше казалось сказкой.
Одной из такихудивительных рождающих идеи компаний стали «Шокли транзистор» и155«Фэрчайлд семикондактор». Люди, которые в то или другое время былисотрудниками «Фэрчайлда», основали свои 38 новые фирмы, включаясозданную Бобом Нойсом «Интел». Эти компании превратили часть округаСанта-Кларав«кремниевуюдолину»,мировуюстолицуполупроводниковой техники.Прошло уже полстолетия с тех пор, как Фредерик Терман создал своенаучно-техническое содружество. В свои 74 года он все еще с тем жевоодушевлением говорил о созданной им технологической империи:« Пока мы идем тем же путем, по которому мы достигли того, что мысегодня имеем, - нет предела нашему развитию».3.
Discussion Points: 1.The story of development of the US science. 2. NASand NASA . Tell about the space age in the USA and Russia. Give the examplesof space cooperation of our two countries. 3. Think Tanks and R&D in the USUniversities. 4. The story of “Silicon Valley”. 5. Intel, Apple, Sun and Microsoftnow.CHAPTER VII. MEDIARead the words:Notoriously пресловутыйto expose - разоблачатьTo sue for libel or slander-судиться за клеветуUbiquitous повсеместныйnoteworthy - примечательныйMuckraking - digging out the dirtdisparaging-пренебрежительныйOp-ed pages (opposite the editorial page)cartoon- карикатураTo slant the news - приспосабливатьcomic strips – полоски юмораTo be awesome - почтительныйcumulative effect- совокупныйA political bias- политическое пристрастие to be in peril - быть в опасностиFrom praise to ridicule - от похвалы к высмеиваниюNewspapersAmerican newspapers get much of their news from the two US largestnews agencies AP (Associated Press) and UPI (United PressInternational).AP is the oldest international agency (founded in 1848).It maintains reporters and cameramen at 122 domestic and65 foreign news bureaus and has some 10,000 subscribesin 115 countries.- newspapers, radio and televisionstations and other agencies which pay to receive and useAP.UPI has 92 domestic and 81 foreign bureaus in over90 countries.
It isestimated that altogether, around 2billion people get most of their news directly or indirectlythrough AP and UPI.156According to statistics, more than 9,000 newspapers (daily, weekly,Sunday, etc.) appear in 6,516 cities and towns in the United States.Including the 85 papers published in 34 different languages, the dailynewspapers in the United States sell over 63 million copies a day. Thereare also more than 7,000 newspapers, which are published weekly,semiweekly or monthly.It is often said that there is no “national press” in theUnited States as there is in Great Britain.
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