5. The extract from the book Bloodline by Sidney Sheldon shows the work of a policeman.
1) What helped him in his work?
Max spent two days visiting banks and financial companies, credit rating organizations and vital statistics offices. He was not interested in talking to the people at those places: he was interested in talking to their computers.
Max was a genius with computers. He would sit before the console board and play the machine like a virtuoso. It did not matter what language the computer had been taught, for Max spoke all of them. He talked to digital computers and low-level and high-level language computers. He was at ease with FORTRAN and FORTRAN IV, the giant IBM 370's and the PDP 10's and 11's and ALGOL 68.
He was at home with COBOL, programmed for business, and Basic, used by the police, and the high-speed APL, which conversed solely in charts and graphs. He held conversations in the binary code, and questioned the arithmetic units and the CPV units, and the high-speed printer answered his questions at the rate of eleven hundred lines a minute. The giant computers had spent their lives sucking up information, storing it, analyzing it, remembering it, and now they were spewing it out in Max's ear, whispering their secrets to him. The computers gave a mathematical sketch of a person drawn in digits and bi ary codes and charts.
Nothing was safe. Privacy in today's civilization was a delusion, a myth. Every citizen was exposed, his deepest secrets laid bare, waiting to be read. People were on record if they had a Social Security number, an insurance policy, a driver's license or a bank account. They were listed if they had paid taxes or drawn unemployment insurance or welfare funds. Their names were stored in computers if they were covered by a medical plan, had made mortgage payment on a home, owned an automobile or bicycle or had a savings or checking account. The computers knew their names if they had been in a hospital, or in the military service, had a fishing or hunting license, had applied for a passport, or telephone, or electricity, or if they had been married or divorced or born.
If one knew where to look, and if one was patient, all the facts were available. Copies of bank receipts and canceled checks and bills were all laid out before him.
Max Hornung and the computers had a wonderful rapport. They did not laugh at Max's accent, or the way he looked, or acted or dressed. To the computers Max was a giant. They respected his intelligence, admired him, loved him. They happily gave up their secrets to him, sharing their delicious gossip about the fools that mortals made of themselves. It was like old friends chatting.
2) Fill in the scheme about computers with the information from the story.
3) People can get on the list in computers in different situations.
Find the following cases:
• a person has a paper giving official permission to drive a motor vehicle
• a person has a written statement of the details of an agreement with an insurance company
• the amount of money borrowed so as to buy smth expensive, and interest on it paid over a period of years
4) Add some other cases which were mentioned in the text. Explain them.
5) How many times could you be on a list? Why?
6) Find the examples of the following constructions. How do they characterise the situation?
7) The highlighted words describe the work of the computer. Guess their meaning through the context, and fill in the table.
1) What helped him in his work?
Max spent two days visiting banks and financial companies, credit rating organizations and vital statistics offices. He was not interested in talking to the people at those places: he was interested in talking to their computers.
Max was a genius with computers. He would sit before the console board and play the machine like a virtuoso. It did not matter what language the computer had been taught, for Max spoke all of them. He talked to digital computers and low-level and high-level language computers. He was at ease with FORTRAN and FORTRAN IV, the giant IBM 370's and the PDP 10's and 11's and ALGOL 68.
He was at home with COBOL, programmed for business, and Basic, used by the police, and the high-speed APL, which conversed solely in charts and graphs. He held conversations in the binary code, and questioned the arithmetic units and the CPV units, and the high-speed printer answered his questions at the rate of eleven hundred lines a minute. The giant computers had spent their lives sucking up information, storing it, analyzing it, remembering it, and now they were spewing it out in Max's ear, whispering their secrets to him. The computers gave a mathematical sketch of a person drawn in digits and bi ary codes and charts.
Nothing was safe. Privacy in today's civilization was a delusion, a myth. Every citizen was exposed, his deepest secrets laid bare, waiting to be read. People were on record if they had a Social Security number, an insurance policy, a driver's license or a bank account. They were listed if they had paid taxes or drawn unemployment insurance or welfare funds. Their names were stored in computers if they were covered by a medical plan, had made mortgage payment on a home, owned an automobile or bicycle or had a savings or checking account. The computers knew their names if they had been in a hospital, or in the military service, had a fishing or hunting license, had applied for a passport, or telephone, or electricity, or if they had been married or divorced or born.
If one knew where to look, and if one was patient, all the facts were available. Copies of bank receipts and canceled checks and bills were all laid out before him.
Max Hornung and the computers had a wonderful rapport. They did not laugh at Max's accent, or the way he looked, or acted or dressed. To the computers Max was a giant. They respected his intelligence, admired him, loved him. They happily gave up their secrets to him, sharing their delicious gossip about the fools that mortals made of themselves. It was like old friends chatting.
2) Fill in the scheme about computers with the information from the story.
3) People can get on the list in computers in different situations.
Find the following cases:
• a person has a paper giving official permission to drive a motor vehicle
• a person has a written statement of the details of an agreement with an insurance company
• the amount of money borrowed so as to buy smth expensive, and interest on it paid over a period of years
4) Add some other cases which were mentioned in the text. Explain them.
5) How many times could you be on a list? Why?
6) Find the examples of the following constructions. How do they characterise the situation?
7) The highlighted words describe the work of the computer. Guess their meaning through the context, and fill in the table.
