HISTORY OF COMPUTER

computing

The Jacquard loom was one of the first programmable devices.

It is difficult to identify any one device as the earliest computer, partly because the term
"computer" has been subject to varying interpretations over time.

Originally, the term "computer" referred to a person who performed numerical

calculations (a human computer), often with the aid of a mechanical calculating device.
Examples of early mechanical computing devices included the abacus, the slide rule and
arguably the astrolabe and the Antikythera mechanism (which dates from about 150-100
BC). The end of the Middle Ages saw a re-invigoration of European mathematics and
engineering, and Wilhelm Schickard's 1623 device was the first of a number of
mechanical calculators constructed by European engineers.

However, none of those devices fit the modern definition of a computer because they
could not be programmed. In 1801, Joseph Marie Jacquard made an improvement to the
textile loom that used a series of punched paper cards as a template to allow his loom to
weave intricate patterns automatically. The resulting Jacquard loom was an important
step in the development of computers because the use of punched cards to define woven
patterns can be viewed as an early, albeit limited, form of programmability.

In 1837, Charles Babbage was the first to conceptualize and design a fully programmable
mechanical computer that he called "The Analytical Engine".[3] Due to limited finance,
and an inability to resist tinkering with the design, Babbage never actually built his
Analytical Engine.

Large-scale automated data processing of punched cards was performed for the U.S.
Census in 1890 by tabulating machines designed by Herman Hollerith and manufactured
by the Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation, which later became IBM. By the
end of the 19th century a number of technologies that would later prove useful in the
realization of practical computers had begun to appear: the punched card, Boolean
algebra, the vacuum tube (thermionic valve) and the teleprinter.

During the first half of the 20th century, many scientific computing needs were met by
increasingly sophisticated analog computers, which used a direct mechanical or electrical
model of the problem as a basis for computation. However, these were not programmable
and generally lacked the versatility and accuracy of modern digital computers.

Defining characteristics of five first operative digital computers

Turing
Computer Shown working Binary Electronic Programmable
complete

By punched film
Zuse Z3 May 1941 Yes No Yes (1998)
stock

Atanasoff–Berry
Summer 1941 Yes Yes No No
Computer

December
Partially, by
Colossus 1943 / January Yes Yes No
rewiring
1944

Harvard Mark I By punched paper

1944 No No Yes (1998)
– IBM ASCC tape

Partially, by
1944 No Yes Yes
rewiring
ENIAC
By Function Table
1948 No Yes Yes
ROM

A succession of steadily more powerful and flexible computing devices were constructed
in the 1930s and 1940s, gradually adding the key features that are seen in modern
computers. The use of digital electronics (largely invented by Claude Shannon in 1937)
and more flexible programmability were vitally important steps, but defining one point
along this road as "the first digital electronic computer" is difficult (Shannon 1940).
Notable achievements include:

EDSAC was one of the first computers to implement the stored program (von Neumann)
architecture.

• Konrad Zuse's electromechanical "Z machines". The Z3 (1941) was the first
working machine featuring binary arithmetic, including floating point arithmetic
and a measure of programmability. In 1998 the Z3 was proved to be Turing
complete, therefore being the world's first operational computer.
• The non-programmable Atanasoff – Berry Computer (1941) which used vacuum
tube based computation, binary numbers, and regenerative capacitor memory.
• The secret British Colossus computer (1944), which had limited programmability
but demonstrated that a device using thousands of tubes could be reasonably
reliable and electronically reprogrammable. It was used for breaking German
wartime codes.
• The Harvard Mark I (1944), a large-scale electromechanical computer with
limited programmability.
• The U.S. Army's Ballistics Research Laboratory ENIAC (1946), which used
decimal arithmetic and is sometimes called the first general purpose electronic
computer (since Konrad Zuse's Z3 of 1941 used electromagnets instead of
electronics). Initially, however, ENIAC had an inflexible architecture which
essentially required rewiring to change its programming.

Several developers of ENIAC, recognizing its flaws, came up with a far more flexible
and elegant design, which came to be known as the stored program architecture or von
Neumann architecture. This design was first formally described by John von Neumann in
the paper "First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC", published in 1945. A number of
projects to develop computers based on the stored program architecture commenced
around this time, the first of these being completed in Great Britain. The first to be
demonstrated working was the Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine (SSEM)
or "Baby". However, the EDSAC, completed a year after SSEM, was perhaps the first
practical implementation of the stored program design. Shortly thereafter, the machine
originally described by von Neumann's paper — EDVAC — was completed but did not
see full-time use for an additional two years.

Nearly all modern computers implement some form of the stored program architecture,
making it the single trait by which the word "computer" is now defined. By this standard,
many earlier devices would no longer be called computers by today's definition, but are
usually referred to as such in their historical context. While the technologies used in
computers have changed dramatically since the first electronic, general-purpose
computers of the 1940s, most still use the von Neumann architecture. The design made
the universal computer a practical reality.

Microprocessors are miniaturized devices that often implement stored program CPUs.

Vacuum tube-based computers were in use throughout the 1950s, but were largely
replaced in the 1960s by transistor-based devices, which were smaller, faster, cheaper,
used less power and were more reliable. These factors allowed computers to be produced
on an unprecedented commercial scale. By the 1970s, the adoption of integrated circuit
technology and the subsequent creation of microprocessors such as the Intel 4004 caused
another leap in size, speed, cost and reliability. By the 1980s, computers had become
sufficiently small and cheap to replace simple mechanical controls in domestic appliances
such as washing machines. Around the same time, computers became widely accessible
for personal use by individuals in the form of home computers and the now ubiquitous
personal computer. In conjunction with the widespread growth of the Internet since the
1990s, personal computers are becoming as common as the television and the telephone
and almost all modern electronic devices contain a computer of some kind.

Stored program architecture

Main articles: Computer program and Computer programming

The defining feature of modern computers which distinguishes them from all other
machines is that they can be programmed. That is to say that a list of instructions (the
program) can be given to the computer and it will store them and carry them out at some
time in the future.

In most cases, computer instructions are simple: add one number to another, move some
data from one location to another, send a message to some external device, etc. These
instructions are read from the computer's memory and are generally carried out
(executed) in the order they were given. However, there are usually specialized
instructions to tell the computer to jump ahead or backwards to some other place in the
program and to carry on executing from there. These are called "jump" instructions (or
branches). Furthermore, jump instructions may be made to happen conditionally so that
different sequences of instructions may be used depending on the result of some previous
calculation or some external event. Many computers directly support subroutines by
providing a type of jump that "remembers" the location it jumped from and another
instruction to return to the instruction following that jump instruction.

Program execution might be likened to reading a book. While a person will normally read
each word and line in sequence, they may at times jump back to an earlier place in the
text or skip sections that are not of interest. Similarly, a computer may sometimes go
back and repeat the instructions in some section of the program over and over again until
some internal condition is met. This is called the flow of control within the program and
it is what allows the computer to perform tasks repeatedly without human intervention.

Comparatively, a person using a pocket calculator can perform a basic arithmetic

operation such as adding two numbers with just a few button presses. But to add together
all of the numbers from 1 to 1,000 would take thousands of button presses and a lot of
time — with a near certainty of making a mistake. On the other hand, a computer may be
programmed to do this with just a few simple instructions. For example:

mov #0,sum ; set sum to 0

mov #1,num ; set num to 1
loop: add num,sum ; add num to sum
add #1,num ; add 1 to num
cmp num,#1000 ; compare num to 1000
ble loop ; if num <= 1000, go back to 'loop'
halt ; end of program. stop running
Once told to run this program, the computer will perform the repetitive addition task
without further human intervention. It will almost never make a mistake and a modern
PC can complete the task in about a millionth of a second.[4]

However, computers cannot "think" for themselves in the sense that they only solve
problems in exactly the way they are programmed to. An intelligent human faced with
the above addition task might soon realize that instead of actually adding up all the
numbers one can simply use the equation
and arrive at the correct answer (500,500) with little work.[5] In other words, a computer
programmed to add up the numbers one by one as in the example above would do exactly
that without regard to efficiency or alternative solutions.

Programs

A 1970s punched card containing one line from a FORTRAN program. The card reads:
"Z(1) = Y + W(1)" and is labelled "PROJ039" for identification purposes.

In practical terms, a computer program might include anywhere from a dozen

instructions to many millions of instructions for something like a word processor or a
web browser. A typical modern computer can execute billions of instructions every
second and nearly never make a mistake over years of operation.

Large computer programs may take teams of computer programmers years to write and
the probability of the entire program having been written completely in the manner
intended is unlikely. Errors in computer programs are called bugs. Sometimes bugs are
benign and do not affect the usefulness of the program, in other cases they might cause
the program to completely fail (crash), in yet other cases there may be subtle problems.
Sometimes otherwise benign bugs may be used for malicious intent, creating a security
exploit. Bugs are usually not the fault of the computer. Since computers merely execute
the instructions they are given, bugs are nearly always the result of programmer error or
an oversight made in the program's design.[6]

In most computers, individual instructions are stored as machine code with each
instruction being given a unique number (its operation code or opcode for short). The
command to add two numbers together would have one opcode, the command to multiply
them would have a different opcode and so on. The simplest computers are able to
perform any of a handful of different instructions, the more complex computers have
several hundred to choose from — each with a unique numerical code. Since the
computer's memory is able to store numbers, it can also store the instruction codes. This
leads to the important fact that entire programs (which are just lists of instructions) can be
represented as lists of numbers and can themselves be manipulated inside the computer
just as if they were numeric data. The fundamental concept of storing programs in the
computer's memory alongside the data they operate on is the crux of the von Neumann,
or stored program, architecture. In some cases, a computer might store some or all of its
program in memory that is kept separate from the data it operates on. This is called the
Harvard architecture after the Harvard Mark I computer. Modern von Neumann
computers display some traits of the Harvard architecture in their designs, such as in CPU
caches.

While it is possible to write computer programs as long lists of numbers (machine

language) and this technique was used with many early computers,[7] it is extremely
tedious to do so in practice, especially for complicated programs. Instead, each basic
instruction can be given a short name that is indicative of its function and easy to
remember — a mnemonic such as ADD, SUB, MULT or JUMP. These mnemonics are
collectively known as a computer's assembly language. Converting programs written in
assembly language into something the computer can actually understand (machine
language) is usually done by a computer program called an assembler. Machine
languages and the assembly languages that represent them (collectively termed low-level
programming languages) tend to be unique to a particular type of computer. For instance,
an ARM architecture computer (such as may be found in a PDA or a hand-held
videogame) cannot understand the machine language of an Intel Pentium or the AMD
Athlon 64 computer that might be in a PC.[8]

Though considerably easier than in machine language, writing long programs in assembly
language is often difficult and error prone. Therefore, most complicated programs are
written in more abstract high-level programming languages that are able to express the
needs of the computer programmer more conveniently (and thereby help reduce
programmer error). High level languages are usually "compiled" into machine language
(or sometimes into assembly language and then into machine language) using another
computer program called a compiler.[9] Since high level languages are more abstract than
assembly language, it is possible to use different compilers to translate the same high
level language program into the machine language of many different types of computer.
This is part of the means by which software like video games may be made available for
different computer architectures such as personal computers and various video game
consoles.

The task of developing large software systems is an immense intellectual effort. It has
proven, historically, to be very difficult to produce software with an acceptably high
reliability, on a predictable schedule and budget. The academic and professional
discipline of software engineering concentrates specifically on this problem.

Example

A traffic light showing red.

Suppose a computer is being employed to drive a traffic light. A simple stored program
might say:

1. Turn off all of the lights

2. Turn on the red light
3. Wait for sixty seconds
4. Turn off the red light
5. Turn on the green light
6. Wait for sixty seconds
7. Turn off the green light
8. Turn on the yellow light
9. Wait for two seconds
10. Turn off the yellow light
11. Jump to instruction number (2)

With this set of instructions, the computer would cycle the light continually through red,
green, yellow and back to red again until told to stop running the program.

However, suppose there is a simple on/off switch connected to the computer that is
intended be used to make the light flash red while some maintenance operation is being
performed. The program might then instruct the computer to:

1. Turn off all of the lights

2. Turn on the red light
3. Wait for sixty seconds
4. Turn off the red light
5. Turn on the green light
6. Wait for sixty seconds
7. Turn off the green light
8. Turn on the yellow light
9. Wait for two seconds
10. Turn off the yellow light
11. If the maintenance switch is NOT turned on then jump to instruction number 2
12. Turn on the red light
13. Wait for one second
14. Turn off the red light
15. Wait for one second
16. Jump to instruction number 11

In this manner, the computer is either running the instructions from number (2) to (11)
over and over or its running the instructions from (11) down to (16) over and over,
depending on the position of the switch.[10]

How computers work

Main articles: Central processing unit and Microprocessor
A general purpose computer has four main sections: the arithmetic and logic unit (ALU),
the control unit, the memory, and the input and output devices (collectively termed I/O).
These parts are interconnected by busses, often made of groups of wires.

The control unit, ALU, registers, and basic I/O (and often other hardware closely linked
with these) are collectively known as a central processing unit (CPU). Early CPUs were
composed of many separate components but since the mid-1970s CPUs have typically
been constructed on a single integrated circuit called a microprocessor.

Control unit

Main articles: CPU design and Control unit

The control unit (often called a control system or central controller) directs the various
components of a computer. It reads and interprets (decodes) instructions in the program
one by one. The control system decodes each instruction and turns it into a series of
control signals that operate the other parts of the computer.[11] Control systems in
advanced computers may change the order of some instructions so as to improve
performance.

A key component common to all CPUs is the program counter, a special memory cell (a
register) that keeps track of which location in memory the next instruction is to be read
from.[12]

Diagram showing how a particular MIPS architecture instruction would be decoded by

the control system.

The control system's function is as follows — note that this is a simplified description
and some of these steps may be performed concurrently or in a different order depending
on the type of CPU:

1. Read the code for the next instruction from the cell indicated by the program
counter.
2. Decode the numerical code for the instruction into a set of commands or signals
for each of the other systems.
3. Increment the program counter so it points to the next instruction.
4. Read whatever data the instruction requires from cells in memory (or perhaps
from an input device). The location of this required data is typically stored within
the instruction code.
5. Provide the necessary data to an ALU or register.
 6. If the instruction requires an ALU or specialized hardware to complete, instruct
the hardware to perform the requested operation.
7. Write the result from the ALU back to a memory location or to a register or
perhaps an output device.
8. Jump back to step (1).

Since the program counter is (conceptually) just another set of memory cells, it can be
changed by calculations done in the ALU. Adding 100 to the program counter would
cause the next instruction to be read from a place 100 locations further down the
program. Instructions that modify the program counter are often known as "jumps" and
allow for loops (instructions that are repeated by the computer) and often conditional
instruction execution (both examples of control flow).

It is noticeable that the sequence of operations that the control unit goes through to
process an instruction is in itself like a short computer program - and indeed, in some
more complex CPU designs, there is another yet smaller computer called a
microsequencer that runs a microcode program that causes all of these events to happen.

Arithmetic/logic unit (ALU)

Main article: Arithmetic logic unit

The ALU is capable of performing two classes of operations: arithmetic and logic.

The set of arithmetic operations that a particular ALU supports may be limited to adding
and subtracting or might include multiplying or dividing, trigonometry functions (sine,
cosine, etc) and square roots. Some can only operate on whole numbers (integers) whilst
others use floating point to represent real numbers — albeit with limited precision.
However, any computer that is capable of performing just the simplest operations can be
programmed to break down the more complex operations into simple steps that it can
perform. Therefore, any computer can be programmed to perform any arithmetic
operation — although it will take more time to do so if its ALU does not directly support
the operation. An ALU may also compare numbers and return boolean truth values (true
or false) depending on whether one is equal to, greater than or less than the other ("is 64
greater than 65?").

Logic operations involve Boolean logic: AND, OR, XOR and NOT. These can be useful
both for creating complicated conditional statements and processing boolean logic.

Superscalar computers contain multiple ALUs so that they can process several
instructions at the same time. Graphics processors and computers with SIMD and MIMD
features often provide ALUs that can perform arithmetic on vectors and matrices.

Memory

Main article: Computer storage

Magnetic core memory was popular main memory for computers through the 1960s until
it was completely replaced by semiconductor memory.

A computer's memory can be viewed as a list of cells into which numbers can be placed
or read. Each cell has a numbered "address" and can store a single number. The computer
can be instructed to "put the number 123 into the cell numbered 1357" or to "add the
number that is in cell 1357 to the number that is in cell 2468 and put the answer into cell
1595". The information stored in memory may represent practically anything. Letters,
numbers, even computer instructions can be placed into memory with equal ease. Since
the CPU does not differentiate between different types of information, it is up to the
software to give significance to what the memory sees as nothing but a series of numbers.

In almost all modern computers, each memory cell is set up to store binary numbers in
groups of eight bits (called a byte). Each byte is able to represent 256 different numbers;
either from 0 to 255 or -128 to +127. To store larger numbers, several consecutive bytes
may be used (typically, two, four or eight). When negative numbers are required, they are
usually stored in two's complement notation. Other arrangements are possible, but are
usually not seen outside of specialized applications or historical contexts. A computer can
store any kind of information in memory as long as it can be somehow represented in
numerical form. Modern computers have billions or even trillions of bytes of memory.

The CPU contains a special set of memory cells called registers that can be read and
written to much more rapidly than the main memory area. There are typically between
two and one hundred registers depending on the type of CPU. Registers are used for the
most frequently needed data items to avoid having to access main memory every time
data is needed. Since data is constantly being worked on, reducing the need to access
main memory (which is often slow compared to the ALU and control units) greatly
increases the computer's speed.

Computer main memory comes in two principal varieties: random access memory or
RAM and read-only memory or ROM. RAM can be read and written to anytime the CPU
commands it, but ROM is pre-loaded with data and software that never changes, so the
CPU can only read from it. ROM is typically used to store the computer's initial start-up
instructions. In general, the contents of RAM is erased when the power to the computer is
turned off while ROM retains its data indefinitely. In a PC, the ROM contains a
specialized program called the BIOS that orchestrates loading the computer's operating
system from the hard disk drive into RAM whenever the computer is turned on or reset.
In embedded computers, which frequently do not have disk drives, all of the software
required to perform the task may be stored in ROM. Software that is stored in ROM is
often called firmware because it is notionally more like hardware than software. Flash
memory blurs the distinction between ROM and RAM by retaining data when turned off
but being rewritable like RAM. However, flash memory is typically much slower than
conventional ROM and RAM so its use is restricted to applications where high speeds are
not required.[13]

In more sophisticated computers there may be one or more RAM cache memories which
are slower than registers but faster than main memory. Generally computers with this sort
of cache are designed to move frequently needed data into the cache automatically, often
without the need for any intervention on the programmer's part.

Input/output (I/O)

Main article: Input/output

Hard disks are common I/O devices used with computers.

I/O is the means by which a computer receives information from the outside world and
sends results back. Devices that provide input or output to the computer are called
peripherals. On a typical personal computer, peripherals include input devices like the
keyboard and mouse, and output devices such as the display and printer. Hard disk
drives, floppy disk drives and optical disc drives serve as both input and output devices.
Computer networking is another form of I/O.

Often, I/O devices are complex computers in their own right with their own CPU and
memory. A graphics processing unit might contain fifty or more tiny computers that
perform the calculations necessary to display 3D graphics. Modern desktop computers
contain many smaller computers that assist the main CPU in performing I/O.

Multitasking

Main article: Computer multitasking

While a computer may be viewed as running one gigantic program stored in its main
memory, in some systems it is necessary to give the appearance of running several
programs simultaneously. This is achieved by having the computer switch rapidly
between running each program in turn. One means by which this is done is with a special
signal called an interrupt which can periodically cause the computer to stop executing
instructions where it was and do something else instead. By remembering where it was
executing prior to the interrupt, the computer can return to that task later. If several
programs are running "at the same time", then the interrupt generator might be causing
several hundred interrupts per second, causing a program switch each time. Since modern
computers typically execute instructions several orders of magnitude faster than human
perception, it may appear that many programs are running at the same time even though
only one is ever executing in any given instant. This method of multitasking is sometimes
termed "time-sharing" since each program is allocated a "slice" of time in turn.

Before the era of cheap computers, the principle use for multitasking was to allow many
people to share the same computer.

Seemingly, multitasking would cause a computer that is switching between several

programs to run more slowly - in direct proportion to the number of programs it is
running. However, most programs spend much of their time waiting for slow input/output
devices to complete their tasks. If a program is waiting for the user to click on the mouse
or press a key on the keyboard, then it will not take a "time slice" until the event it is
waiting for has occurred. This frees up time for other programs to execute so that many
programs may be run at the same time without unacceptable speed loss.

Multiprocessing

Main article: Multiprocessing

Cray designed many supercomputers that used multiprocessing heavily.

Some computers may divide their work between one or more separate CPUs, creating a
multiprocessing configuration. Traditionally, this technique was utilized only in large and
powerful computers such as supercomputers, mainframe computers and servers.
However, multiprocessor and multi-core (multiple CPUs on a single integrated circuit)
personal and laptop computers have become widely available and are beginning to see
increased usage in lower-end markets as a result.

Supercomputers in particular often have highly unique architectures that differ

significantly from the basic stored-program architecture and from general purpose
computers.[14] They often feature thousands of CPUs, customized high-speed
interconnects, and specialized computing hardware. Such designs tend to be useful only
for specialized tasks due to the large scale of program organization required to
successfully utilize most of a the available resources at once. Supercomputers usually see
usage in large-scale simulation, graphics rendering, and cryptography applications, as
well as with other so-called "embarrassingly parallel" tasks.

Networking and the Internet

Main articles: Computer networking and Internet

Visualization of a portion of the routes on the Internet.

Computers have been used to coordinate information in multiple locations since the
1950s, with the U.S. military's SAGE system the first large-scale example of such a
system, which led to a number of special-purpose commercial systems like Sabre.

In the 1970s, computer engineers at research institutions throughout the United States
began to link their computers together using telecommunications technology. This effort
was funded by ARPA (now DARPA), and the computer network that it produced was
called the ARPANET. The technologies that made the Arpanet possible spread and
evolved. In time, the network spread beyond academic and military institutions and
became known as the Internet. The emergence of networking involved a redefinition of
the nature and boundaries of the computer. Computer operating systems and applications
were modified to include the ability to define and access the resources of other computers
on the network, such as peripheral devices, stored information, and the like, as extensions
of the resources of an individual computer. Initially these facilities were available
primarily to people working in high-tech environments, but in the 1990s the spread of
applications like e-mail and the World Wide Web, combined with the development of
cheap, fast networking technologies like Ethernet and ADSL saw computer networking
become almost ubiquitous. In fact, the number of computers that are networked is
growing phenomenally. A very large proportion of personal computers regularly connect
to the Internet to communicate and receive information. "Wireless" networking, often
utilizing mobile phone networks, has meant networking is becoming increasingly
ubiquitous even in mobile computing environments.

Further topics
Hardware

Main article: Computer hardware

The term hardware covers all of those parts of a computer that are tangible objects.
Circuits, displays, power supplies, cables, keyboards, printers and mice are all hardware.

History of computing hardware

Antikythera mechanism,
Calculators Difference Engine,
Norden bombsight
First Generation
(Mechanical/Electromechanical)
Jacquard loom,
Programmable Devices Analytical Engine,
Harvard Mark I, Z3

Atanasoff–Berry
Computer, IBM 604,
Calculators
UNIVAC 60, UNIVAC
120
Second Generation (Vacuum Tubes)
ENIAC, EDSAC,
EDVAC, UNIVAC I,
Programmable Devices
IBM 701, IBM 702, IBM
650, Z22

IBM 7090, IBM 7080,

Mainframes
System/360, BUNCH
Third Generation (Discrete
transistors and SSI, MSI, LSI
Integrated circuits)
PDP-8, PDP-11,
Minicomputer
System/32, System/36
 Minicomputer VAX, AS/400

4-bit microcomputer Intel 4004, Intel 4040

Intel 8008, Intel 8080,

Motorola 6800, Motorola
8-bit microcomputer
6809, MOS Technology
6502, Zilog Z80

8088, Zilog Z8000, WDC

16-bit microcomputer
65816/65802

Fourth Generation (VLSI integrated

circuits) 80386, Pentium, 68000,
32-bit microcomputer
ARM architecture

x86-64, PowerPC, MIPS,

64-bit microcomputer[15]
SPARC

Embedded computer 8048, 8051

Desktop computer, Home

computer, Laptop
computer, Personal
Personal computer digital assistant (PDA),
Portable computer, Tablet
computer, Wearable
computer

Quantum computer,
Chemical computer, DNA
Theoretical/experimental computing, Optical
computer, Spintronics
based computer

Other Hardware Topics

Peripheral device Input Mouse, Keyboard, Joystick, Image

 scanner

Output Monitor, Printer

(Input/output)

Floppy disk drive, Hard disk, Optical

Both
disc drive, Teleprinter

Short range RS-232, SCSI, PCI, USB

Computer busses
Long range (Computer
Ethernet, ATM, FDDI
networking)

Software

Main article: Computer software

Software refers to parts of the computer which do not have a material form, such as
programs, data, protocols, etc. When software is stored in hardware that cannot easily be
modified (such as BIOS ROM in an IBM PC compatible), it is sometimes called
"firmware" to indicate that it falls into an uncertain area somewhere between hardware
and software.

Computer software

Operating UNIX System V, AIX, HP-UX, Solaris (SunOS), IRIX,

Unix/BSD
system List of BSD operating systems

List of Linux distributions, Comparison of Linux

GNU/Linux
distributions

Microsoft Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows

Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows CE

DOS 86-DOS (QDOS), PC-DOS, MS-DOS, FreeDOS

 Mac OS Mac OS classic, Mac OS X

Embedded and
List of embedded operating systems
real-time

Experimental Amoeba, Oberon/Bluebottle, Plan 9 from Bell Labs

Multimedia DirectX, OpenGL, OpenAL

Library
Programming
C standard library, Standard template library
library

Protocol TCP/IP, Kermit, FTP, HTTP, SMTP

Data
File format HTML, XML, JPEG, MPEG, PNG

Graphical user Microsoft Windows, GNOME, KDE, QNX Photon,

interface (WIMP) CDE, GEM

User
interface Text user interface Command line interface, shells

Other

Application Word processing, Desktop publishing, Presentation

Office suite program, Database management system, Scheduling &
Time management, Spreadsheet, Accounting software

Internet Access Browser, E-mail client, Web server, Mail transfer agent,
Instant messaging
 Computer-aided design, Computer-aided
Design and
manufacturing, Plant management, Robotic
manufacturing
manufacturing, Supply chain management

Raster graphics editor, Vector graphics editor, 3D

Graphics modeler, Animation editor, 3D computer graphics,
Video editing, Image processing

Digital audio editor, Audio playback, Mixing, Audio

Audio
synthesis, Computer music

Compiler, Assembler, Interpreter, Debugger, Text

Software Editor, Integrated development environment,
Engineering Performance analysis, Revision control, Software
configuration management

Edutainment, Educational game, Serious game, Flight

Educational
simulator

Strategy, Arcade, Puzzle, Simulation, First-person

Games shooter, Platform, Massively multiplayer, Interactive
fiction

Artificial intelligence, Antivirus software, Malware

Misc scanner, Installer/Package management systems, File
manager

Programming languages

Programming languages provide various ways of specifying programs for computers to

run. Unlike natural languages, programming languages are designed to permit no
ambiguity and to be concise. They are purely written languages and are often difficult to
read aloud. They are generally either translated into machine language by a compiler or
an assembler before being run, or translated directly at run time by an interpreter.
Sometimes programs are executed by a hybrid method of the two techniques. There are
thousands of different programming languages — some intended to be general purpose,
others useful only for highly specialized applications.
 Programming Languages

Timeline of programming languages, Categorical list of

Lists of
programming languages, Generational list of programming
programming
languages, Alphabetical list of programming languages, Non-
languages
English-based programming languages

Commonly used
Assembly ARM, MIPS, x86
languages

Commonly used
High level BASIC, C, C++, C#, COBOL, Fortran, Java, Lisp, Pascal
languages

Commonly used
Bourne script, JavaScript, Python, Ruby, PHP, Perl
Scripting languages

Professions and organizations

As the use of computers has spread throughout society, there are an increasing number of
careers involving computers. Following the theme of hardware, software and firmware,
the brains of people who work in the industry are sometimes known irreverently as
wetware or "meatware".

Computer-related professions

Electrical engineering, Electronics engineering, Computer engineering,

Hardware-
Telecommunications engineering, Optical engineering, Nanoscale
related
engineering

Software- Human-computer interaction, Information technology, Software

related engineering, Scientific computing, Web design, Desktop publishing
The need for computers to work well together and to be able to exchange information has
spawned the need for many standards organizations, clubs and societies of both a formal
and informal nature.

Organizations

Standards groups ANSI, IEC, IEEE, IETF, ISO, W3C

Professional Societies ACM, ACM Special Interest Groups, IET, IFIP

Free/Open source software Free Software Foundation, Mozilla Foundation, Apache

groups Software Foundation

See also

Look up Computer in
Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Computers

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Computer

• Computability theory
• Computer science
• Computing
• Computers in fiction
• Computer security and Computer insecurity
• List of computer term etymologies
• Virtualization
Notes
1. ^ In 1946, ENIAC consumed an estimated 174
kW. By comparison, a typical personal computer may
use around 400 W; over four hundred times less. (Kempf
1961)

2. ^ Early computers such as Colossus and ENIAC

were able to process between 5 and 100 operations per
second. A modern "commodity" microprocessor (as of
2007) can process billions of operations per second, and
many of these operations are more complicated and
useful than early computer operations.

3. ^ The Analytical Engine should not be confused

with Babbage's difference engine which was a non-
programmable mechanical calculator.
4. ^ This program was written similarly to those
for the PDP-11 minicomputer and shows some typical
things a computer can do. All the text after the
semicolons are comments for the benefit of human
readers. These have no significance to the computer and
are ignored. (Digital Equipment Corporation 1972)

5. ^ Attempts are often made to create programs

that can overcome this fundamental limitation of
computers. Software that mimics learning and
adaptation is part of artificial intelligence.

6. ^ It is not universally true that bugs are solely

due to programmer oversight. Computer hardware may
fail or may itself have a fundamental problem that
produces unexpected results in certain situations. For
instance, the Pentium FDIV bug caused some Intel
microprocessors in the early 1990s to produce
inaccurate results for certain floating point division
operations. This was caused by a flaw in the
microprocessor design and resulted in a partial recall of
the affected devices.
7. ^ Even some later computers were commonly
programmed directly in machine code. Some
minicomputers like the DEC PDP-8 could be
programmed directly from a panel of switches.
However, this method was usually used only as part of
the booting process. Most modern computers boot
entirely automatically by reading a boot program from
some non-volatile memory.

8. ^ However, there is sometimes some form of

machine language compatibility between different
computers. An x86-64 compatible microprocessor like
the AMD Athlon 64 is able to run most of the same
programs that an Intel Core 2 microprocessor can, as
well as programs designed for earlier microprocessors
like the Intel Pentiums and Intel 80486. This contrasts
with very early commercial computers, which were
often one-of-a-kind and totally incompatible with other
computers.

9. ^ High level languages are also often interpreted

rather than compiled. Interpreted languages are
translated into machine code on the fly by another
program called an interpreter.

10. ^ Although this is a simple program, it contains

a software bug. If the traffic signal is showing red when
someone switches the "flash red" switch, it will cycle
through green once more before starting to flash red as
instructed. This bug is quite easy to fix by changing the
program to repeatedly test the switch throughout each
"wait" period — but writing large programs that have no
bugs is exceedingly difficult.

11. ^ The control unit's rule in interpreting

instructions has varied somewhat in the past. While the
control unit is solely responsible for instruction
interpretation in most modern computers, this is not
always the case. Many computers include some
instructions that may only be partially interpreted by the
control system and partially interpreted by another
device. This is especially the case with specialized
computing hardware that may be partially self-
contained. For example, EDVAC, the first modern
stored program computer to be designed, used a central
control unit that only interpreted four instructions. All
of the arithmetic-related instructions were passed on to
its arithmetic unit and further decoded there.

12. ^ Instructions often occupy more than one

memory address, so the program counters usually
increases by the number of memory locations required
to store one instruction.
13. ^ Flash memory also may only be rewritten a
limited number of times before wearing out, making it
less useful for heavy random access usage. (Verma 1988)
14. ^ However, it is also very common to construct
supercomputers out of many pieces of cheap commodity
hardware; usually individual computers connected by
networks. These so-called computer clusters can often
provide supercomputer performance at a much lower
cost than customized designs. While custom
architectures are still used for most of the most powerful
supercomputers, there has been a proliferation of cluster
computers in recent years. (TOP500 2006)

15. ^ Most major 64-bit instruction set architectures

are extensions of earlier designs. All of the architectures
listed in this table existed in 32-bit forms before their
64-bit incarnations were introduced.