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The pictures above depict men with their inventions. The firs picture shows the Wright
Brothers, the inventors of airplanes. Meanwhile, the second picture shows Martin Cooper,
the inventor of cell phones. The men’s inventions advanced rapidly, along with the growth of
technology. The inventions have been modified into better forms and functions.
In this chapter, you will learn about past events or activities, referring to specific times
and results. Do all the tasks attentively.
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TASK 1.
Practice the following dialog with your friends in front of the class.
Interview with the Wright Brothers
In 1905, there was a TV talk show regarding a great inventor. Below is a script of an
interview with the Wright brothers.
Host : Hello and welcome to our talk show. Great Inventors! Today, we have very
special guests are Orville and Wilbur Wright. We will be asking them about their
revolutionary inventors. What do you call your invention?
Orville : We invented an airplane.
Host : An airplane? What for?
Wilbur : To help people fly!
Host : Ouch, is it like a flying car? Where did find the inspiration?
Orville : Our dad gave us a toy helicopter that flew with the aid of rubber bands (gelang
karet). We have been interested in the idea since then (dari dulu)
Wilbur : Orville has always liked to builds kites, so we have experimented with making our
own helicopters for a while now (untuk sementara ini)
Host : That was only a toy, what about the actual plane?
Wilbur : Orville made the maiden (penerbangan pertama) flight with our first plane at
Kitty Hawk on December 14, 1903.
Host : Why Kitty Hawk?
Orville : Kitty Hawk had a hill, good breeze and was sandy. These conditions would help
soften the landings in case of a crash. The first flight lasted 12 seconds and flew
for 120 feet.
Wilbur : We have worked and experimented with gliders to perfect the wing design and
controls since then.
Host : I see. So you have the lasted version of your airplane?
Wilbur : Yes. Recently. I took our newly designed airplane, Flyer II, for its maiden flight
lasting over 5 minutes.
Host : How amazing! I think this invention will grow big soon.
Wilbur : Our father has asked us not to fly together. He said it’s for safety reasons.
Orville : Yes, we will continue experimenting so that airplanes will be available to
everyone soon.
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Host : O.K, we wish you good luck with your next experiments.
Adopted from: Kementrian Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan, Bahasa Inggris untuk SMA/MA Kelas X edisi revisi cetakan ke-2

TASK 2
Answer the following questions based on the dialog in TASK 1.
1. What was the talk show about?
2. Who were the Wright Brothers?
3. What made the Wright Brothers interested in making airplanes?
4. Why did the Wright Brothers choose Kitty Hawk for the landing test?
5. Who made the maiden flight at Kitty Hawk?
6. Why did he fly for twelve seconds only?
7. What was the superiority of the latest version of the Wright Brother’s airplane
compared to the original?
8. Why did the Wright Brothers father ask them not to fly together?
9. The host says, “We will be asking them about their revolutionary inventions.”
10. What can we learn from the Wright Brother’s experiment?
TASK 3.
See the pictures carefully.
Then, answer the questions that follow.

Questions:
1. Compare the two items in picture 1.
2. What are the similarity and differences between picture 1 and picture 2?
3. The man is picture 2 is Martin (Marty) Cooper. What is he well known for?
4. Martin Cooper is a successful person. What do you think the key of his success is?
5. Do you think his (Martin Cooper) invention is important? Why / why not?
(Kenapa/kenapa tidak)?
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TASK 4.
Read the following interview and perform it.
What is the interview about?
In an exclusive interview with The Times, Martin Cooper reflected on his historic call, where
cell phone technology is going and how The North End helped shaped his mid as an inventor.
Host : it has been a big year for you so far. Were you thinking this far ahead when you
made your first call?
Cooper : Actually, no. the two thoughts I had when making my call was primarily, was the
phone going to work? It was one of incredible achievements my team did.
Finally, the reason we made that phone is because we were competing with the
biggest company in the world and who had invented cellular. We believed in
competitions, initially. Next, we thought the time was right for personal phones,
phones to carry and enjoy the freedom to be anywhere.
Host : Who did you make that first call to? How did the conversation go?
Cooper : I called my counterpart Dr. Joel Engel. I distinctly remember what I said to him; I
repeated it a thousand times, “Joel, its Marty Cooper. I’m calling you from a cell
phone, but a real cell phone, a personal, handheld portable cell phone.”
Host : Do you still call with Joel?
Cooper : As a matter of fact, he was co-awarded of the Draper award a few weeks ago. I
do talk to him.
Host : What impact did that call have on your career?
Cooper : My Company really took very good care of me. It was just a step along the way.
The call itself didn’t have that much significance. The fact we were working not
only with this demonstration, but in fillings to the Federal Communications
Commission. We worked very hard on this whole project and we ended up
winning and that was what was important. Not too long after that phone call, I
became corporate director of Research and Development. Obviously, all the
effort didn’t hurt me at all.
Host : You worked ten years after the call to get cell phones into the market. What has
fuelled your interest in advancing radio and communication systems?
Cooper : Initially, you think about the fact I joined my company in 1954 and was working
in what was called the two-way radio business. The essence of that business is
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giving people the freedom to move around while they communicate. We started
out with the police and fire departments, businesses and ultimately moved to
consumers. The motivation was always there; the recognition that people are
fundamentally and inherently mobile, equally as important and in order to do
that, you have to use radio channels.
Host : What’s been the biggest surprise for you in the advancement of cell phone
technology?
Cooper : There were two surprises. One is the very rapid adoption. It seems so obvious
today, but you can’t imagine the people who told us back in 1973 and even until
1983 and later, that this was going to be a very limited market. The second is
nobody could ever have anticipated that you would put in a little box, that a
consumer could buy, what was a super in the 1980s. It was just unimaginable.
Just remember, in 1973, we have no digital cameras, no personal computers, and
no internet. The thought of placing a billion transistors in a cell phone was
ludicrous.
Host : Where do you see communications technology in 40 years?
Cooper : We are still in the baby stages now. What you are going to find is that your cell
phone is really going to be part of your personality. You are going to have a cell
phone that does what you want it to do and in ways that are not intrusive. I think
good technology is invisible and intuitive. You shouldn’t even know it’s there.
What does the cell phone of the future look like? For talking, you could have a
device behind your ear, or might even be embedded under your skin. It will have
a very powerful computer in it and you will be able to talk to the computer and
instruct it who to call you and you will be connected. You will carry a device on
you that are what I call a communications server, but all that will do is connect
devices on your body for other purposes. As an example, we already know how
to measure all objects on the human body. There is the potential to do a physical
examination not every year or every five years, but every minute.
Host : In other interview, you’ve said you carry three phones on your belt, and must
stay current on all matters. Do you ever find yourself away from a telephone,
away from technology?
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Cooper : Well, every night I charge and go to sleep. Yes, there are times. When I go skiing,
I may carry a phone, but it’s there for safety purposes. I’m not one who reads his
e-mail while he’s riding up on the chair lift. I do like to get away from technology.
Host : You spent almost a decade growing up in the North End as a child. What is the
first thought when you recall the area?
Cooper : I’ve been back to Winnipeg several times in the last 10 years, but just about 10 or
12 years ago, they actually tore down the house and grocery store my folks had
at Redwood and Charles. I remember that store very well. It had a little backyard
and a minimal tree in it, but I built a tree house. I even remember the sidewalk,
which probably hasn’t been replaced in the last 80 years or so.
Host : Any final words for the young Martin Coopers out there still smashing Coke
bottles open and dismantling objects to see how they work?
Cooper : There are a lot of object to be invented. We need lots of curious people who will
create these inventions. I would encourage people who have that intent to fulfill
because there are a lot of dreams available to be fulfilled. The most important
advice that I give anybody interested, is the only way you understand what it is
that people want and need is to immerse yourself and put your into the minds of
those people. Everything I have learned is that the purpose of technology is to
make people’s lives better. Creating inventions for the sake of the invention is
probably the most dangerous for an engineer to do. It’s the people that count,
not the technology.
TASK 5.
Find the meaning of the following words.
1. Counterpart = _____________ 6. Ludicrous = _____________
2. Distinctly = _____________ 7. Invisible = _____________
3. Portable = _____________ 8. Intent = _____________
4. Ultimately = _____________ 9. To immerse = _____________
5. Inherently = _____________ 10. Sake = _____________
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TASK 6
Complete the following interview with the suitable sentences from the box.
Then, perform the complete interview with your friend.
a. Did the other people share your intention?
b. we have developed very well recently
c. You’ve got to have great equipment for those small teams
d. During the time we were in Albuquerque
e. I had customers who went bankrupt and couldn’t pay us
f. I would program night and day and tell people
g. When did you establish your company
h. It was hard to recruit people while growing
i. What were a few of the early disappointments
j. What would be the two or three items that would characterize

Host : Bill, let’s talk a little about the people that formed your company.
Gates : Paul and I were the founders. (1) _______________. Which was 1975 to 1978,
we ended up with about sixteen people . Marc McDonald was actually our firs
employee. Other than Andrea, who wrote the manuals, and Maria, who helped
keep the books? I was the sales Department, Contract Department. Everybody
else here were programmers. We all wrote an immense amount of code. These
were exciting years. The number of new machines coming out was pretty
dramatic. Our offices were here in fancy Albuquerque, up on the floor of this
building here. Albuquerque was great. There weren’t many distractions there,
but (2) _______________.
Host : What was the culture of the company like?
Gates : Well, (3) _______________. “Hey, we promised this would be done in a few
months get them done. “we were so aggressive at just getting jobs done. Like
committing to write a ROM BASIC that would fit into 12K of ROM. It was fun
because I at that time got to look over all the code that people did, and talk to
people about where we would go with things. It was just a very small group, and
yet between the new machines being made in Japan and the U.S every week a
new invention was happening.
Host : (4) _______________? Were they there as many hours as required?
Gates : Well, certainly most of the people did. Besides, we were all quite young. I may
have set the most extreme example, but the work was really fun. We always had
deadlines that we ended up committing to that ended up being very challenging.
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Host : (5) _______________ your company way?

Gates : The key for us, number one, has always being hiring very smart people. There is
no way of getting around, that in terms of I.Q., you’ve got to be very elitist in
picking the people who deserve to write software. Ninety-five percent of the
people shouldn’t write complex software and using small teams helps a lot. (6)
_______________. So, pick good people, use small teams, give them excellent
equipment; vast compilation, debugging, lots of machines, profiling technology,
so that they are very productive in terms of what they are doing. Make it very
clear what they can do to change the spec. make them feel like they are very
much in control of it. Have lots of people read the code so that you don’t end up
with one person who is kind of hiding the fact that they can’t solve a problem.
Design speed from the beginning.
Host : We talked a lot about your earlier successes. (7) _______________? Then, what
did you learn from them?
Gates : there were a lot of disappointments in the early days, but because we got in
early we had to make more mistakes than other people. (8) _______________,
customers who we spent a lot of time with who never built microcomputer-
based machines.
TASK 7
Answer the following questions based on the interview in TASK 6
1. What was the interview about?
2. How many years did the company have its office in Albuquerque?
3. Who was Bill Gates’ first employee?
4. What problem did the company have when it was located in Albuquerque?
5. What were the employees like while working?
6. What characterized Bill Gates company way?
7. What did the company do to make its employees very productive?
8. When did the company have disappointments?
9. What disappointments did the company suffer?
10. What can we learn from the interview?