Деловой английский язык

Text 2. Get the Information about Electronic Mail
Post-Haste
Making computer talk to each other. This is how one might describe, in a nutshell, one of the major directions which the computer industry has taken in the past five years. The advent of the "personal computer" or PC, has made this even more important, because it has helped the computer to spread into further areas of our lives.

Until quite recently the computer was perceived as having two main functions. The first was as a tool for industry and business in performing such tasks as accounting and statistical analysis in a quick and efficient manner. The second was as a means of storing information for such diverse institutions as universities, government departments and private companies. This type of computer was best personified by the IBM 370 with its large, powerful data processors. The PC radically changed the computer's image. The PC is a small television and keyboard that sits on your desk. Not only can it be used to perform the old tasks, but it can also help you to write letters and documents, play games and last, but not least, talk to other computers.

One PC can talk to another, sending files back and forth from different locations. The PC has helped lonely hearts to break through the embarrassment barrier. Now they can send written messages to one another from a safe distance late at night.

On a more practical basis, the PC can talk to a large, mainframe computer, or "Host". In this way the PC can have access to large databases and update them with information from outlying areas. The PC can thus take advantage of powerful data processing programmes that only a larger machine is capable of running.

The transfer of data over distances requires special networks. These consist either of wires or satellite connections. But if every location needed its own brunch of a network, then the cost would be prohibitive, given the wide geographical area involved. So the computer industry decided to take advantage of a very extensive communications network that was already in existence: the telephone lines.

There was the problem, however, that telephone lines were invented to carry voices. Information on computers is not stored as a voice but as a series of on/off impulses. Thus it was necessary to design a machine that would transform the computer's language into something that the phone lines would understand. The result was the invention of the modem or modulator/demodulator.

Another technical difficulty was that telephone lines the world over suffer from interference. In order to overcome this difficulty, special data transmission lines were installed between major centres, such as Milan to New York or Rome to London. As these special lines spread, interconnecting networks developed which covered many parts of the globe. It is possible to reach these networks by making a local phone call.

The next stage was to design a system by which a computer user in Chicago could communicate with a computer user in Milan in a language that is mutually comprehensible. It is at this point that Electronic Mail enters the story. The electronic mail (EM) system fits in between two computers that are talking to each other. It helps to organise the communications so that the computers involved use the same message format. The better EM systems offer the possibility of filing messages and the capacity to search for messages in the filing system. From your PC you dial a local number and this gives you access to your own mailbox which is located on the central EM computer. Once you have access to the mailbox you can prepare messages and send them to other mailboxes on the system. The recipient can similarly collect and answer his mail by dialing the central computer.

An important concept in electronic mail is that of "user freindliness". This refers to a computer's ability to talk to a human without the human having to learn a special computer language. The original electronic mail systems were not particularly "user friendly": many of them required special codes and numbers in order to get into the system. Later systems have been designed so that even the most inexperienced user can understand them without too much difficulty.

The PC, in league with electronic mail, has enabled the computer to reach every corner of every office, house and classroom. Computers are everywhere. In fact, I'm just about to send this article from my IBM PC here in Los Angeles to my editor in Milan, just in time for the deadline.

Speak up, № 3, 1988

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