新概念英語第三冊：Predicting the future
Predicting the future 預(yù)測未來
Predicting the future is notoriously difficult. Who could have imagined, in the mid 1970s, for example, that by the end of the 20th century, computers would be as common in people's homes as TV sets? In the 1970s, computers were common enough, but only in big business, government departments, and large organizations. These were the so-called mainframe machines. Mainframe computers were very large indeed, often occupying whole air-conditioned rooms, employing full-time technicians and run on specially-written software. Though these large machines still exist, many of their functions have been taken over by small powerful personal computers, commonly known as PCs.
眾所周知，預(yù)測未來是非常困難的。舉個例子吧，在20世紀(jì)70年代中葉又有誰能想得到在20世紀(jì)末的時候，家庭用的計(jì)算機(jī)會像電視機(jī)一樣普遍?在70年代，計(jì)算機(jī)已經(jīng)相當(dāng)普及了，但只用在大公司，政府部門和大的組織之中，它們被稱為主機(jī)。計(jì)算機(jī)主機(jī)確實(shí)很大，常常占據(jù)了裝有空調(diào)的多間房間，雇用專職的技師，而且得用專門編寫的軟件才能運(yùn)行。雖然這種大計(jì)算機(jī)仍然存在，但它們的許多功能已被體積小但功能齊全的個人電腦——即我們常說的PC機(jī)——所代替了。
是不是受益匪淺呢?快來新東方網(wǎng)學(xué)習(xí)吧~
