本书主要取材于两个世纪之交国外发表的近40种最新材料。内容广泛，语言现象丰富。所选内容既有基础理论，又尽量跟踪最近两三年内公众关心的热点与新技术。教材内容基本能覆盖计算机、通信这两个专业常用的技术词汇、词组及常见的科技语法。
本书在本次改编中，对全书作了一些重要的改进，即：大量增加了习题的类型和份量，目的是力图帮助各个层面的读者在学完课文之后都能有较大的提高（所有习题均附有解答）。因此，本收除可作为计算机与通信两个专业学生的英语教材外，也可供其他工程专业作为专业英语教材或参考书，更有利于从事计算机、通信、信息等工作的技术人员的自学。
一如既往，本次教材的编写除对于所选专题的正文给出中分参考译文，列出较多的关键字，对于某些较难的语法现象，给出相应的参考译文注释并对语法现象予以分析之外，在本收的最后还附有生词表，以供读者快速查阅。

徐秀兰，教授1975年毕业于北京邮电学院（现北京邮电大学）报话通信专业。毕业后留校工作。20世纪70年代初从事“程控交换”新专业的筹建。数年后专门从事计算机专业教学。讲授过“计算机原理”、“微机原理”、“程序设计”、“外围接口电路”、“80386与80486原理与程序设计”等课程。参加过多项国家与部级科研项目的科研工作。经国家教委考试和选拔，于1990至1991年作为高访学者访问美国麻省州立大学。1992及1993年为来自中东和非洲不会汉语的研究生开设专业课，用英语讲授“微机原理及程序设计”与“C语言程序设计”课程。自1993年开始，为计算机及有关专业本科生主编“计算机与通信专业英语”教程并担任教学至今。作为编委之一参与《计算机词汇》与《计算机词汇大全》的编写。前者荣获1987年国家优秀图书二等奖。

UNIT 1 A New Computing Model--Pervasive Ubiquitous Computing
1-1 What Is Pervasive Computing
1-2 Challenges to Pervasive Computing
1-3 Turn Pervasive Computing into Mediated Spaces
Reading Material: Smart Spaces and Hardware Prototypes
Exercises
UNIT 2 Computer Systems
2-1 Why Should People Care of a Computer System
2-2 What Should People Do with a Computer System
2-3 Designing for Performance
2-4 Pentium and PowerPC Evolution
Exercises
UNIT 3 Design Technologies of CPU
3-1 The Complex Instruction Set Computer--CISC
3-2 Definition of Reduced Instruction Set Computer---RISC
3-3 VLIW Microprocessors
Exercises
UNIT4 Operating System
4-1 What Is an Operating System?
4-2 Operating System Structure
4-3 Windows XP
4-4 Linux Overview
Exercises
UNIT5 Programming
5-1 Programming Languages
5-2 The Need for a New Style of Programming
5-3 Visual Programming
5-4 C#:Potent Combo of Java and C++
Exercises
UNIT6 Decision Support Systems
6-1 Introduction to Decision Support
6-2 Data Warehousing
6-3 Data Mining
Exercises
UNIT7 Basic Concepts of Pattern Recognition
7-1 Whata Are thr Pattern Recognition and Classification Problems
7-2 Approaches ot Recognition and Classification
7-3 Features and their Distributions
Exercises
UNIT8 Computer Networks
8-1 What Is a Network?
8-2 The Major Types of Networks
8-3 Network Protocols
8-4 IPv6 Overview
Exercises
UNIT9 Network Security
9-1 Where Do Security Threats Come from?
9-2 Encryption Methods
9-3 Access Control
9-4 Firewalls:Internet Security
Exercises
UNIT10 Grid Computing
10-1 What Is Grid Computing?
10-2 Why IS Grid Computing Important?
10-3 What Are the Key Components ot Grid Computing?
10-4 What Standards Are Associated with Grid Computing?
Exercises
UNIT11 Multimedia
UNIT12 Digital Sound Technology
UNIT13 Image Processing
UNIT14 Broadband ISDN and ATM
UNIT15 Optical Fiber Communications
UNIT16 Mobile Wireless Personal COMMunications
UNIT17 Access Network(Subscriber Loop)Technologies
UNIT18 New Computing Types in the Future
Answer/习题解答
Translations for Texts(Partial)/参考译文（部分）
List of New Words/词汇表
Bibliography/参考文献