四级冲刺练习阅读（197）_大学英语阅读

四级冲刺练习阅读（197）

　　Computer Illiteracy

　　It was pointed out by a computer wag that a computerized system consists of three subsystems; hardware, software, and jelly-ware.

　　Hardware is the computer itself the collection of slightly impure chunks of silicon dioxide and other metal oxides that sometimes conduct electricity and sometimes dont, but never conduct it very well. Basically, hardware is mostly sand with some metal and some organic plastic material to hold it together.

　　Software consists of the instructions necessary in order for the hardware to do things. The instructions are nothing more than signals indicating that certain pieces of hardware are to turn themselves on or off in specific sequences at specific times in specific areas of the hardware. The basic instructions are written or given in binary terms on or off and other software elements translate this to and from the more complex language used by the next element in the system.

　　Jelly-ware is the human being who tells the hardware what to do, who gives the hardware its data, who utilizes the output of the hardware, who writes the software, and who uses the output of the software. Jelly-ware itself is a computer consisting of hardware and software. Jelly-ware is mostly water with specific and small amounts of impurities in certain locations. The jelly-wares software is mostly preprogrammed with some RAM that is inputted as a result of experience.