资料题：When intelligent microprocessor-based office machines come into being（　）。

Like it or not, the world has embarked an a microelectronic revolution that is expected tosurpass the industrial revolution in the breadth and speed of cultural and technological changes it makes.Pushed by the development of the transistor in the late 1940s, microelectronics first began to make.their mark in 1959 with the introduction of the integrated circuit (IC)-a package of transistor circuitry wired together on a small silicon chip.In time, other electronic components such as diodes and resistors made their appearance in chips.But a major breakthrough came in1971when microprocessors came into being that essentially offered the entire central processing unit: of a computer-complex circuity to process data and handle computations on a silicon chip.Today the most densely packed ICs feature nearly 100,00 components on a chip five millimeters across,wired together with aluminum conductors roughly 30 times thinner than a human hair.Within three decades, a roomful of vacuum tubes, wires and other components has been reduced to the size of a comflake.And the process is mot over yet.Chip manufacturers are sure that they will soon able to produce integrated circuits containing at least one million components.Some scientists describe the electronics age a the second industrial revolution.They say that man is just at the beginning of mechanizing intellectual activity.They suggest that this, in fact, marks the profound difference between the microelectronic and industrial revolutions.The development of industrial technology largely strengthened physical capabilities of human beings,enabling people to harness more, process and shape materials more easily, travel faster, and so on, while the development of microelectronics extends mental capabilities, enabling electric “intelligence" to be closely related to a wide range of products and processes.In fact no technology in history has had such a broad range of potential applications.Increasingly sophisticated computer-controlled robots are entering industry to cut down production costs, time and labor requirements.Re-programmable machinery now makes it economically reasonable' to automate processes involving short production runs and frequent changes in machine setting, which constitute the majority of manufacturing processes." Intelligent" microprocessor-based office machines lead to the elimination of fling and routine office work as the electronic -and perhaps one day paperless-office becomes a common scene.If the chief impact of microelectronics is felt in offices, secretaries are the ones who will bear the brunt of he new technology.Resistance to microelectronics, however, will ultimately prove counterproductive.The best solution is to retain those workers for tomorrow's jobs.