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READING 1

Computing in Early Civilizations


It is difficult to think of western society today without modern technology. The last decades of the
twentieth century have witnessed a proliferation of high-tech computers, mobile phones, text messaging, the Internet
and the World Wide Web. Software is now pervasive, and it is an integral part of automobiles, airplanes, televisions
and mobile communication. The pace of change as a result of all this new technology has been extraordinary. Today
consumers may book flights over the World Wide Web as well as keep in contact with family members in any part
of the world via e-mail or mobile phone. In previous generations, communication often involved writing letters that
took months to reach the recipient. Communication improved with the telegrams and the telephone in the late
nineteenth century. Communication today is instantaneous with text messaging, mobile phones and e-mail, and the
new generation probably views the world of their parents and grandparents as being old-fashioned.
The new technologies have led to major benefits to society and to improvements in the standard of living
for many citizens in the western world. It has also reduced the necessity for humans to perform some of the more
tedious or dangerous manual tasks, as many of these may now be automated by computers. The increase in
productivity due to the more advanced computerized technologies has allowed
humans, at least in theory, the freedom to engage in more creative and rewarding tasks.
Early societies had a limited vocabulary for counting: for example, one, two, three, many is associated
with some primitive societies and indicates primitive computation and scientific ability. It suggests that there was no
need for more sophisticated arithmetic in the primitive culture as the problems dealt with were elementary. These
early societies would typically have employed their fingers for counting, and as humans have 5 fingers on each hand
and 5 toes on each foot, then the obvious bases would have been 5, 10 and 20. Traces of the earlier use of the base
20 system are still apparent in modern languages such as English and French. This includes phrases such as three
score in English and quatre vingt in French.
The decimal system (base 10) is used today in western society, but the base 60 was common in
computation circa 1,500 B.C. One example of the use of base 60 today is still evident in the subdivision of hours
into 60 min and the subdivision of minutes into 60 s. The base 60 system (i.e. the sexagesimal system) is inherited
from the Babylonians [Res:84]. The Babylonians were able to represent arbitrarily large numbers or fractions with
just two symbols. The binary (base 2) and hexadecimal (base 16) systems play a key role in computing (as the
machine instructions that computers understand are in binary code).
The achievements of some of these ancient societies were spectacular. The archaeological remains of
ancient Egypt such as the pyramids at Giza and the temples of Karnak and Abu Simbal are impressive. These
monuments provide an indication of the engineering sophistication of the ancient Egyptian civilisation. The objects
found in the tomb of Tutankamun are now displayed in the Egyptian museum in Cairo and demonstrate the artistic
skill of the Egyptians.
The Greeks made major contributions to western civilisation including contributions to mathematics,
philosophy, logic, drama, architecture, biology and democracy. The Greek philosophers considered fundamental
questions such as ethics, the nature of being, how to live a good life and the nature of justice and politics. The Greek
philosophers include Parmenides, Heraclitus, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. The Greeks invented democracy, and
their democracy was radically different from todays representative democracy. The sophistication of Greek
architecture and sculpture is evident from the Parthenon on the Acropolis and the Elgin marbles that are housed
today in the British Museum, London.
The Hellenistic period commenced with Alexander the Great and led to the spread of Greek culture
throughout most of the known world. The city of Alexandria became a centre of learning and knowledge during the
Hellenistic period. Its scholars included Euclid who provided a systematic foundation for geometry. His work is
known as The Elements, and consists of 13 books. The early books are concerned with the construction of
geometric figures, number theory and solid geometry.
There are many words of Greek origin that are part of the English language. These include words such as
psychology which is derived from two Greek words: psyche (cuwe) and logos (logo). The Greek word psyche
means mind or soul, and the word logos means an account or discourse. Other examples are anthropology derived
from anthropos (antropo) and logos (logo).

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The Romans were influenced by the Greek culture. The Romans built aqueducts, viaducts and
amphitheatres. They also developed the Julian calendar, formulated laws (lex) and maintained peace throughout the
Roman Empire (pax Romano). The ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum demonstrate their engineering capability.
Their numbering system is still employed in clocks and for page numbering in documents. However, it is
cumbersome for serious computation. The collapse of the Roman Empire in Western Europe led to a decline in
knowledge and learning in Europe. However, the eastern part of the Roman Empire continued at Constantinople
until its sacking by the Ottomans in 1453.

Task 1
Word Building
Find
the correct meaning the word or phrase below by consulting with dictionary, and then make a simple sentence
with your own word. (e.g; Proliferation [Noun] = Laju perkembangan: - Today, A Proliferation of Computer
Technology is fastest then before)
1. Pervasive =
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
2. Extraordinary =
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
3. Instantaneous =
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
4. Old-fashioned =
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
5. Necessity =
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
6. Engage =
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
7. Sophisticated =
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
8. Computation =
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
9. Achievements =
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
10. The binary =
_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Task 2
Translate the reading text above into Indonesian (do the task in pairs)!

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READING 2

History of Programming Languages


Hardware is physical and may be seen and touched, whereas software is intangible and is an
intellectual undertaking by a team of programmers. Software is written in a particular programming
language, and hundreds of languages have been developed. Programming languages have evolved over
time with the earliest languages using machine code to program the computer. The next development was
the use of assembly languages to represent machine language instructions. These were then translated into
machine code by an assembler. The next step was the development of high-level programming languages
such as FORTRAN and COBOL. These were easier to use than assembly languages and machine code
and helped to improve quality and productivity.
A first-generation programming language (or 1GL) is a machine-level programming language
that consists of 1s and 0s. Their main advantage of these languages is execution speed as they may be
directly executed on the computer. These languages do not require a compiler or assembler to convert
from a high-level language or assembly language into the machine code.
However, writing a program in machine code is difficult and error prone as it involves writing a
stream of binary numbers. This made the programming language difficult to learn and difficult to correct
should any errors occur. The programming instructions were entered through the front panel switches of
the computer system, and adding new code was difficult. Further, the machine code was not portable as
the machine language for one computer could differ significantly from that of another computer. Often,
the program needed to be totally rewritten for the new computer.
First-generation languages were mainly used on the early computers. A program written in a
high-level programming language is generally translated by the compiler into the machine language of
the target computer for execution. Second-generation languages, or 2GL, are low-level assembly
languages that are specific to a particular computer and processor. However, assembly languages are
unlike first-generation programming languages in that the assembly code can be read and written more
easily by a human. They require considerably more programming effort than high-level programming
languages, and are more difficult to use for larger applications. The assembly code is converted by the
assembler into the actual machine code to run on the computer. The assembly language is specific to a
particular processor family and environment and is therefore not portable. A program written in assembly
language for a particular processor family needs to be rewritten for a different platform. However, since
the assembly language is in the native language of the processor, it has significant speed advantages over
high-level languages. Second-generation languages are still used today, but they have generally been
replaced by high-level programming languages.
The third-generation languages, or 3GL, are high-level programming languages such as Pascal, C
or FORTRAN. They are general-purpose languages and have been applied to business and scientific
applications. They are designed to be easier for a human to understand and include features such as
named variables, conditional statements, iterative statements, assignment statements and data structures.
Early examples of third-generation languages are FORTRAN, ALGOL and COBOL. Later examples are
languages such as C, C++ and Java. The advantages of these high-level languages over the older secondgeneration languages were:
Ease of readability
Clearly defined syntax (and semantics)
Suitable for business or scientific applications
Machine independent
Portability to other platforms

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Ease of debugging
Execution speed
These languages are machine independent and may be compiled for different platforms. The early 3GLs
were procedural in that they focus on how something is done rather than on what needs to be done. The
later 3GLs were object-oriented, and the programming tasks were divided into objects. Objects may be
employed to build larger programs, in a manner that is analogous to building a prefabricated building.
Examples of modern object-oriented language are the Java language that is used to build web
applications, C++ and Smalltalk. High-level programming languages allow programmers to focus on
problem solving rather than on the low-level details associated with assembly languages. They are easier
to debug and to maintain than assembly languages.
Fourth-generation languages specify what needs to be done rather than how it should be done.
They are designed to reduce programming effort and include report generators and form generators.
Report generators take a description of the data format and the report that is to be created, and then
automatically generate a program to produce the report. Form generators are used to generate programs to
manage online interactions with the application system users. However, 4GLs are slow when compared to
compiled languages.
A fifth-generation programming language, or 5GL, is a programming language that is based
around solving problems using constraints applied to the program rather than using an algorithm written
by the programmer. Fifth-generation languages are designed to make the computer (rather than the
programmer) solve the problem. The programmer specifies the problem and the constraints to be satisfied
and is not concerned with the algorithm or implementation details. These languages are mainly used for
research purposes especially in the field of artificial intelligence. Prolog is one of the best-known fifthgeneration languages, and it is a logic programming language. The task of deriving an efficient algorithm
from a set of constraints for a particular problem is non-trivial, and to date, this step has not been
successfully automated. Fifth-generation languages are used mainly in academia.

ASSIGNMENT 1
Write your answer by circling the letter a, b, c, d as your right choice.
1) Which of the following words is closest in meaning to the word intellectual in line 2?
A. Cunning.
B. Diligent.
C. Factual.
D. Intelligentsia.
2) In line 5, the word These refers to
A. Computer Software.
B. Computer tools.
C. Machine Language Instructions.
D. Languages.
3. According to the passage, What has been written in the explicit of language program?
A. Software.
B. Machine.
C. Hardware.
D. Programmer.

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4.

Where in the passage is the best place for the following sentence? .is
specific to a particular processor family and environment and is therefore not portable.
A. After the last sentence in the first paragraph.
B. After the word Their in paragraph 2.
C. After the word Often in paragraph 3.
D. After the word The assembly language in paragraph 4.

5. All of the following sentences are mentioned in paragraph 7, EXCEPT:


A. A fifth-generation programming language, or 5GL, is a programming language that is based
around solving problems using constraints applied to the program rather than using an
algorithm written by the programmer.
B. Fifth-generation languages are not designed to make the computer (rather than the
programmer) solve the problem.
C. Prolog is one of the best-known fifth-generation languages, and it is a logic programming
language.
D. The task of deriving an efficient algorithm from a set of constraints for a particular problem
is non-trivial, and to date, this step has not been successfully automated.
ASSIGNMENT 2
Translate these pieces of paragraph below into Indonesian (do the task in pairs)!
1. A first-generation programming language (or 1GL) is a machine-level programming language
that consists of 1s and 0s. Their main advantage of these languages is execution speed as they
may be directly executed on the computer. These languages do not require a compiler or
assembler to convert from a high-level language or assembly language into the machine code.
2. However, writing a program in machine code is difficult and error prone as it involves writing a
stream of binary numbers. This made the programming language difficult to learn and difficult to
correct should any errors occur. The programming instructions were entered through the front
panel switches of the computer system, and adding new code was difficult. Further, the machine
code was not portable as the machine language for one computer could differ significantly from
that of another computer. Often, the program needed to be totally rewritten for the new computer.
3. First-generation languages were mainly used on the early computers. A program written in a
high-level programming language is generally translated by the compiler into the machine
language of the target computer for execution. Second-generation languages, or 2GL, are lowlevel assembly languages that are specific to a particular computer and processor. However,
assembly languages are unlike first-generation programming languages in that the assembly code
can be read and written more easily by a human. They require considerably more programming
effort than high-level programming languages, and are more
4. They require considerably more programming effort than high-level programming languages, and
are more difficult to use for larger applications. The assembly code is converted by the assembler
into the actual machine code to run on the computer. The assembly language is specific to a
particular processor family and environment and is therefore not portable. A program written in
assembly language for a particular processor family needs to be rewritten for a different platform.
However, since the assembly language is in the native language of the processor, it has significant
speed advantages over high-level languages. Second-generation languages are still used today,
but they have generally been replaced by high-level programming languages.

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