The Road Ahead By Bill Gates

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The Road Ahead by Bill Gates

I Answer the questions:

EXERCISE 3

3a Ð'- How was the work of these three people important to modern computer systems?

Charles Babbage, Claude Shannon, John Von Neumann

- Charles Babbage is the first man who had an idea to make a machine which can work with numbers, and which can do different jobs by following different orders. That was a hundred and fifty years ago.

- After the hundred years, during which people worked on Babbage's idea, in the 1940's, Claude Shannon and John Von Neumann, with Alan Turing's help, were leaders in the American-British project of building the first computer.

- Claude Shannon showed how small switches could be the computer's alphabet (switch that was off meant Ð''true', switch that was on meant Ð''false'), as in binary system which is used nowadays, too.

- John Von Neumann had an idea how computer can be used in powerful ways, using memory for work with data, and that was the beginning of modern computers.

EXERCISE 7

7a Ð'- What does Bill Gates say about the future of television?

- He says that there will be the same kind of television as today, but also the different one. We will be able to watch TV through computer and internet, to record any TV show or movie and save it for watching later, any time we want.

7b Ð'- What does Bill Gates say about the future of telephone communication?

- He says that telephone communication has changed, too Ð'- we have answering machines, which can record and save the messages for later listening, so we can always know who called while we weren't at home.

II Write small essay (at least 15 sentences) on one of the following topics:

EXERCISE 8

Talk about possible uses of Internet. Which of these is most interesting to you? Why?

Information, e-mail, games, telecommuting, shopping

The internet is computer based global information system. It is composed of many interconnected computer networks. Each network may link thousands of computers

enabling them to share information. The internet has brought a transformation in many aspects of life. It is one of the biggest contributors in making the world into