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  3. The pocket calculator has been relegated to the role of a graphic icon on digital screens rather than an object in its own right

The pocket calculator has been relegated to the role of a graphic icon on digital screens rather than an object in its own right

admin2014-01-09  29
问题     The pocket calculator has been relegated to the role of a graphic icon on digital screens rather than an object in its own right. But in the early 1970s, it was at the forefront of consumer technology.
    A pocket calculator was the closest that most 1970s consumers came to owning anything with computational power, even if all it could do was basic math. The Sinclair Executive was one of a cluster of pocket-size electronic calculators developed at the same time. The first one small enough to fit in a shirt pocket was the Busicom LE-120A Handy, introduced in Japan in early 1971.
    When the Sinclair Executive was introduced in 1972 by the British entrepreneur Clive Sinclair, it was cheaper, slimmer and looked much slicker than the others, thanks to a gleaming black ABS plastic case designed by Mr. Sinclair’s brother, Iain. Design magazine hailed it as "at once a conversation piece, a rich man’s plaything and a functional business machine. " Dozens of other manufacturers developed their own versions. The pinnacle of calculator design was the exquisite 1977 ET44, by Germany’s Braun. Culturally, the product peaked in 1981 when the German electro band Kraftwerk released a single titled "Pocket Calculator. " "I am adding and subtracting," run the lyrics. "I’m controlling and composing. By pressing down a special key, it plays a little melody. "
    As personal computers flooded onto the market in the 1980s, calculators, pocket-size and otherwise, seemed steadily less appealing. Clive Sinclair had already turned his attention to other inventions, starting with computing. By the middle of the decade, he moved on to transportation with the Sinclair C5 electric vehicle, which he designed with a single seat but no roof.
    The pocket calculator is a victim of "Moore’s Law," the theory that the number of transistors that can be squeezed onto a microchip will roughly double every two years, increasing computing power at the same rate.
    Even tiny digital devices have become so powerful that they can fulfill the functions of numerous products. Like any other product whose function can be replicated by an app, the pocket calculator is threatened with extinction. Digital devices fulfill their functions just as effectively, and are more convenient because they do so many other things too.
According to the passage, the pocket calculator______.
选项 A、is not much of a useful device and has become obsolete
B、is less of a computing device than it was before
C、needs upgrading to meet consumers’ increasing needs
D、is displaced completely by digital devices like an app
答案B
解析
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