2015考研英语阅读理解精读P22—工学类.docVIP

2015考研英语阅读理解精读P22—工学类 　　Passage 22 　　The creation of the PC is the best thing that ever happened, said Bill Gates at a conference on digital dividends in 2000. He even wondered if it might be possible to make computers for the poor in countries without an electric power grid. The answer is yes, and things are going even further. Villagers in a remote region of Laos that has neither electricity nor telephone connections are being wired up to the Internet. 　　Lee Thorn, the head of the Jhai Foundation, an American-Lao organisation, has been working for nearly five years in the Hin Heup district. The foundation has helped villagers build schools, install wells and organise a weaving co-operative. But those villagers told Mr Thorn that what they needed most was access to the Internet. To have any hope of meeting that need, in an environment which is both physically harsh and far removed from technical support, Mr Thorn realised that a robust computer was the first requirement. 　　He therefore turned to engineers working with the Jhai Foundation, who devised a machine that has no moving, and few delicate, parts. Instead of a hard disk, the Jhai PC relies on flash-memory chips to store its data. Its screen is a liquid-crystal display, rather than an energy-guzzling glass cathode-ray tube--an exception to the rule that the components used are old-fashioned, and therefore cheap. (No Pentiums, for example, just a 486-type processor.) Mr Thorn estimates that, built in quantity, each Jhai PC would cost around $400. Furthermore, because of its simplicity, a Jhai PC can be powered by a car battery charged with bicycle cranks--thus removing the need for a connection to the grid. 　　Wireless Internet cards connect each Jhai PC to a solar-powered hilltop relay station which then passes the signals on to a computer in town that is connected to both the Lao phone system (for local calls) and to the Internet. Meanwhile, the Linux-based software that will run the computers is in the fina