Менеджеры и менеджмент (Executives and Management). Коломейцева Е.М - 17 стр.

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Even then, people still kept underestimating. Consider what Ken Olsen, head of the then powerful Digital Equip-
ment Corp., had to say when asked about the idea of the computer's becoming a common device: "There is no reason
for any individual to have a computer in his home." What proved him wrong was the grass-roots development of soft-
ware for these small devices: word processing, games and, perhaps the most crucial of all, a program called VisiCalc
that not only automated the previously tedious task of calculating financial spreadsheets, but made modeling of business
plans as easy as sneezing. Electronic spreadsheets were the tool that persuaded big business (which had previously
turned its nose up at personal computers) to adopt the machines wholesale. And a new industry was suddenly thriving.
The next big step was the move to computer communications in the '90s, when a program called Mosaic, written
by students at the University of Illinois who later helped found the Netscape company, shot what was already an accel-
erating global Internet into serious overdrive. The prospect of millions of computers connected worldwide was suddenly
a reality. People are still processing the effects of that explosion. And a lot of people, still in denial, are kidding them-
selves by thinking that the end of the Net transformations is anywhere in sight.
Where are the frontiers of computing? It's scary to contemplate, because the field is so young and the technology
so flexible. But consider what some computer scientists are already working on. Nanocomputers–microscopic devices
that may change the way we think of materials. Digital ink that will, in effect, transform paper into something as pro-
tean as computer screens. And "artificial life" software that works like biological organisms, so much so that it strives to
be classified as itself alive.
Skeptics dismiss the feasibility of many of these ambitious projects. In other words, people still persist in underes-
timating the power of a machine whose limitations are seemingly unbounded. If history is our guide, even our imagina-
tions cannot grasp what the computer will ultimately become.
T a s k 6. Discuss the following points from the previous text.
1. The history of the computer up to the '60s of the 20
th
century.
2. The appearance of a personal computer.
3. The move to computer communications.
T a s k 7. Give a summary of the following texts from "Newsweek Special Issue", Winter 1997-98.
THE MOUSE
Humble in size (fits in your palm) and even humbler in name, the computer mouse is now taken for granted. Actu-
ally it's part and parcel of the elephant-size leap forward in computing that it accompanied: the graphical user interface,
or GUI. In the mid-'60s, when GUI's godfather, Douglas Engelbart, began playing with what would become windows
and menus, he realized that for people to comfortably access the stuff within a computer, they'd need a tool that let them
intervene directly on their screens, without necessarily using a keyboard. After experimenting light pens and steering
wheels, he decided on a pointing device as easy to use as an index finger. The first prototypes were wheeled blocks
carved from wood. Later variations at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center and at Apple streamlined and reshaped the
device. Now only the tail-like wire is really mousey.
BAR CODES
Supermarket clerks use bar-code scanners to whisk your purchases from cart to bag in no time, but the
technology behind them developed more slowly. In 1948, a grad student named Bernard Silver overheard a
foodchain exec bemoan the lack of an automated-checkout system. Silver, with fellow student Norman Wood-
land, developed and patented a system that used light to read a set of concentric circles. Crude and cumbersome,
Woodland and Silver's concept waited for decades for the two innovations that would make it practical: com-
puters and lasers. By the late '60s, they'd arrived. In 1973, IBM's Universal Product Code was adopted by the
grocery industry. The following summer, a single pack of gum became the first item sold with a scanner. Store
managers quickly discovered they could use the system not just to speed checkouts, but also to control inventory
and gauge customers' habits. Shopping has never been the same.
THE CELLULAR PHONE
With its catchy name and clear convenience, the walkie-talkie was one of the hits of World War II. So after the
war, companies moved to capitalize on the public interest in wireless phones. In 1946 AT&T set up the first commercial
public radiotelephone service, in St. Louis. The system used a single transmitter and offered just six channels. It was a
success, but was soon backlogged. And the system couldn't be expanded without clogging the radio frequencies. In
1947 AT&T hit upon the solution: instead of a single transmitter, you could create a network of low-power transmitters,
each placed in a region or "cell." As a phone user travels, calls could be handed off from cell to cell, allowing more
people simultaneous access to the airways. In 1983, the first commercial cellular system clicked on with a call from
Chicago to the grandson of Alexander Graham Bell in Germany. Experts predict some 500 million users by 2001.
T a s k 8. Read the text and point out the main facts concerning
1) the history of faxes and copiers;

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