Table 10.5

				Absolute Participle I Construction
			Form	Example
	Simple Active			My brother translating the article, we couldn’t go
				to the disco.
	Perfect Active			My brother having translated the article, we went
				to the disco.
	Simple Passive			The cars at that time were very small, the engine
				(being) placed under the seat.
	Perfect Passive			With the experiments having been carried out,
				we started some new investigations.

10.10.Translate the following sentences. Point out the absolute participle I construction.

1.An electron leaving the surface, the metal becomes positively charged.

2.The CPU controls the operation of the entire system, commands being issued to other parts of the system.

3.Other things being equal, the electron energy values remain constant.

4.The temperature being raised, the kinetic energy is increased.

5.A very basic syntax is used with assembler language, with each line of coding being composed of two basic files.

6.Several extensions of the basic model having been made, we shall pursue the dynamic programming approach.

7.With the structure of various companies being different, the model is often inadequate in each particular case.

8.With the question of representing information having been settled, the major design question becomes one of logic operations.

9.Some scientists do not distinguish between pure and applied mathematics, the distinction being, in fact, of recent origin.

10.The choice having been made, all the other alternatives have been rejected.

11.Several treatments of this problem have been presented, with theories resulting from this investigation falling into one of the two categories.

12.Instructions being obtained, the control unit causes other units to perform the necessary operations.

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10.11. Read the text.

CONFIGURATION

An exploded view of a modern personal computer:

1 – monitor;

2 – motherboard;

3 – CPU (Microprocessor);

4 – primary storage (RAM);

5 – expansion cards;

6 – power supply;

7 – optical disc drive;

8 – secondary storage (hard disk);

9 – keyboard;

10 – mouse.

Computer components

A minimal setup of a typical contemporary desktop computer would be: a computer case with power supply (usually sold together), a motherboard, a processor with a heat sink and a fan (usually sold together); at least one memory card, a mass storage, a keyboard and a mouse for input, a monitor for output.

The motherboard connects everything together. The memory card(s), graphics card and the processor are mounted directly onto the motherboard (the processor in a socket and the memory and graphics cards in expansion slots). The mass storage is connected to it with cables and can be installed in the computer case or in a separate case. The same for the keyboard and the mouse, except that they are external, and connected to the back plate. The monitor is also connected to the back plate, not (usually) directly to the motherboard, but to a connector in the graphics card.

The mass storage can be: a hard disk, a floppy drive or a Zip drive (both with removable media), an optical drive (CD or DVD, removable, usually read-only). The operating system (e.g.: Microsoft Windows, Mac OS, Linux or many others) can be located on either of these, but typically it’s on one of the hard disks. A live CD is also possible, but it is very slow and is usually used for installation of the OS, demonstrations, or problem solving.

On top of these, a typical computer also has: a sound card, a network card, a modem and possibly a router.

Common additions connected on the outside (peripherals) are: a printer, a scanner, a web cam, speakers, a microphone, a headset, a card reader, gaming devices, such as a joystick.

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Several functions (implemented by chipsets) can be integrated into the motherboard, such as typically USB and network, but also graphics and sound. But even if these are present, a separate card can be added if what is available isn’t sufficient.

The graphics and sound card can have a break out box to keep the analog parts away from the electromagnetic radiation inside the computer case. For really large amounts of data, a tape drive can be used or (extra) hard disks can be put together in an external case.

There’s more detailed information about main computer components.

Motherboard

The motherboard (or mainboard) is the primary circuit board within a personal computer. Many other components are connected directly or indirectly to the motherboard. Motherboards usually contain one or more CPUs, supporting circuitry – usually integrated circuits (ICs) providing the interface between the CPU memory and input/output peripheral circuits, main memory, and facilities for initial setup of the computer immediately after being powered on (often called boot firmware or, in IBM

PC compatible computers, a BIOS). In many portable and embedded personal computers, the motherboard houses nearly all of the PC’s core components. Often a motherboard also contains one or more peripheral buses and physical connectors for expansion purposes. Sometimes a secondary daughter board is connected with the motherboard to provide further expandability or to satisfy space constraints.

Central processing unit

The central processing unit, or CPU, is that part of a computer which executes software program instructions. In older computers this circuitry was formerly on several printed circuit boards, but in PC class machines, has been from the first personal computers, a single integrated circuit. Nearly all PCs contain a type of CPU known as a microprocessor. The microprocessor is often plugged into the motherboard using one of many different types of a socket. IBM PC compatible computers use an x86-compatible processor, usually made by Intel, AMD, VIA Technologies or Transmeta. Apple Macintosh computers were initially built with the Motorola 680x0 family of processors, then switched to the PowerPC series (a RISC architecture

jointly developed by IBM, Motorola, and Apple Computer).

Main memory

A four-megabyte RAM card is about twenty-two by fifteen inches (56 by 38 centimeters); made for the VAX 8600 minicomputer (ca. 1986). Integrated circuits

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populate nearly the whole board; the RAM chips are the most common kind, and located in the rectangular areas to the left and right.

A PC’s main memory (i.e., its “primary store”) is a fast storage that is directly accessible by the CPU, and is used to store the currently executing program and immediately needed data. PCs use semiconductor random access memory (RAM) of

various kinds such as DRAM or SRAM as their primary storage. The main memory is much faster than mass storage devices like hard disks or optical discs, but is usually volatile, meaning it does not retain its contents (instructions or data) in the absence of power, and is much more expensive for a given capacity than is most mass storage. Main memory is generally not suitable for long-term or archival data storage.

Hard disk

Mass storage devices store programs and data even when the power is off; they do require power to perform read/write functions during usage. Although semiconductor flash memory has dropped in cost, the prevailing form of mass storage in personal computers is still the electromechanical hard disk.

The disk drives use a sealed head/disk assembly (HDA) which was first introduced by IBM’s “Winchester” disk system. The use of a sealed assembly allowed the use of positive air pressure to drive out particles from the surface of the disk, which improves reliability.

If the mass storage controller provides for expandability, a PC may also be upgraded by the addition of extra hard disk or optical drives. For example, DVD-ROMs, CD-ROMs, and various optical disc recorders may all be added by the user to certain PCs. Standard internal storage device interfaces are ATA, Serial ATA, SCSI, and CF+ Type II in 2005.

Video card

The video card – otherwise called a graphics card, graphics adapter or video adapter – processes and renders the graphics output from the computer to

the computer display, also called the visual display unit (VDU), and is an essential part of the modern computer. On older

models, and today on budget models, graphics circuitry tended to be integrated with the motherboard but, for modern flexible machines, they are supplied in PCI, AGP, or PCI Express format.

When the IBM PC was introduced, many existing personal computers used text-only display adapters and had no graphics capability.

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Laptop computers

A laptop computer or simply laptop, also called a notebook computer or notebook, is a small personal computer designed for mobility. Usually all of the interface hardware needed to operate the laptop, such as parallel and serial ports, graphics card, sound channel, etc., is built-in to a single unit. Most laptops contain batteries to facilitate operation without a readily available electrical outlet. In the interest of saving power, weight and space, they usually share RAM with the video channel, slowing their performance compared to an equivalent desktop

machine.

One main drawback of the laptop is that, due to the size and configuration of components, relatively little can be done to upgrade the overall computer from its original design. Some devices can be attached externally through ports (including via USB); however internal upgrades are not recommended or in some cases impossible, making the desktop PC more modular.

10.12. Match the English terms with their definitions.

1.	A monitor	a) an output device which changes output data
		into printed form
2. Primary storage		b) an input device like a typewriter for entering
	(RAM)	characters
3.	Secondary storage	c) an input device used in computer games for
	(a hard disk)	controlling the cursor or some other symbol in
		its movement around a screen
4. A keyboard		d) random access memory: this is memory which
		can be read and written to
5.	A mouse	e) an input device which reads images on paper
		using a photoelectric cell and produces
		a computer graphic file as output
6.	A joystick	f) a fixed disk inside a computer which may not
		be removed
7.	A printer	g) the screen of a computer terminal or PC
8.	A scanner	h) a device used to point at a location on a
		computer screen

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