Computer

general-purpose device for performing

arithmetic or logical operations

A computer is a machine that uses

electronics to input, process, store, and
output data. Data is information such as
numbers, words, and lists. Input of data
means to read information from a
keyboard, a storage device like a hard
drive, or a sensor. The computer
processes or changes the data by
following the instructions in software
programs. A computer program is a list
of instructions the computer has to
perform. Programs usually perform
mathematical calculations, modify data,
or move it around. The data is then saved
on a storage device, shown on a display,
or sent to another computer. Computers
can be connected together to form a
network such as the internet, allowing
the computers to communicate with
each other.

The processor of a computer is made

from integrated circuits (chips) that
contains many transistors. Most
computers are digital, which means that
they represent information using binary
digits, or bits. Computers come in
different shapes and sizes, depending on
the brand, model, and purpose. They
range from small computers, such as
smartphones and laptops, to large
computers, such as supercomputers.

Characteristics
The two important parts of a computer
are that it responds to a specific
instruction set in a well-defined manner
and that it can execute a stored list of
instructions called a program. There are
four main actions in a computer:
inputting, storing, outputting and
processing.
Modern computers can do billions of
calculations in a second. Being able to
calculate many times per second allows
modern computers to multi-task, which
means they can do many different tasks
at the same time. Computers do many
different jobs where automation is
useful. Some examples are controlling
traffic lights, vehicles, security systems,
washing machines and digital
televisions.

Computers can be designed to do almost

anything with information. Computers
are used to control large and small
machines that, in the past, were
controlled by humans. Most people have
a personal computer at home or at work.
They are used for things such as
calculation, listening to music, reading an
article, writing, or playing games.

Hardware
Modern computers are electronic
computer hardware. They do
mathematical arithmetic very quickly, but
computers do not really "think." They only
follow the instructions in their software
programs. The software uses the
hardware when the user gives it
instructions and produces useful
outputs.
Controls
Computers are controlled with user
interfaces. Input devices which include
keyboards, computer mice, buttons, and
touch screens, etc.

Programs
Computer programs are designed or
written by computer programmers. A few
programmers write programs in the
computer's own language, called
machine code. Most programs are
written using a programming language
like C, C++, JavaScript. These
programming languages are more like
the language with which one talks and
writes every day. The compiler converts
the user's instructions into binary code
(machine code) that the computer will
understand and do what is needed.

History of computers

The Jacquard loom was one of the first programmable devices.

First computer

In 1837, Charles Babbage proposed the

first general mechanical computer, the
Analytical Engine. The Analytical Engine
contained an Arithmetic Logic Unit, basic
flow control, punched cards, and
integrated memory. It is the first general-
purpose computer concept that could be
used for many things and not only one
particular computation. However, this
computer was never built while Charles
Babbage was alive, because he didn't
have enough money. In 1910, Henry
Babbage, Charles Babbage's youngest
son, was able to complete a portion of
this machine and perform basic
calculations.

Before the computer era there were

machines that could do the same thing
over and over again, like a music box. But
some people wanted to be able to tell
their machine to do different things. For
example, they wanted to tell the music
box to play different music every time.
This part of computer history is called
the "history of programmable machines"
which in simple words means "the
history of machines that I can order to do
different things if I know how to speak
their language."
One of the first examples of this was
built by Hero of Alexandria (c. 10–
70 AD). He built a mechanical theater
which performed a play lasting
10 minutes and was operated by a
complex system of ropes and drums.
These ropes and drums were the
language of the machine- they told what
the machine did and when. Some people
argue that this is the first programmable
machine.[1]

Some people disagree on which early

computer is programmable. Many say
the "castle clock", an astronomical clock
invented by Al-Jazari in 1206, is the first
known programmable analog
computer.[2][3] The length of day and
night could be adjusted every day in
order to account for the changing lengths
of day and night throughout the year.[4]
Some count this daily adjustment as
computer programming.

Others say the first computer was made

by Charles Babbage.[4] Ada Lovelace is
considered to be the first
programmer.[5][6][7]

The computing era

At the end of the Middle Ages, people

started thinking math and engineering
were more important. In 1623, Wilhelm
Schickard made a mechanical calculator.
Other Europeans made more calculators
after him. They were not modern
computers because they could only add,
subtract, and multiply- you could not
change what they did to make them do
something like play Tetris. Because of
this, we say they were not
programmable. Now engineers use
computers to design and plan.

In 1801, Joseph Marie Jacquard used

punched paper cards to tell his textile
loom what kind of pattern to weave. He
could use punch cards to tell the loom
what to do, and he could change the
punch cards, which means he could
program the loom to weave the pattern
he wanted. This means the loom was
programmable. At the end of the 1800s
Herman Hollerith invented the recording
of data on a medium that could then be
read by a machine, developing punched
card data processing technology for the
1890 U.S. census. His tabulating
machines read and summarized data
stored on punched cards and they began
use for government and commercial data
processing.

Charles Babbage wanted to make a

similar machine that could calculate. He
called it "The Analytical Engine".[8]
Because Babbage did not have enough
money and always changed his design
when he had a better idea, he never built
his Analytical Engine.

As time went on, computers were used

more. People get bored easily doing the
same thing over and over. Imagine
spending your life writing things down on
index cards, storing them, and then
having to go find them again. The U.S.
Census Bureau in 1890 had hundreds of
people doing just that. It was expensive,
and reports took a long time. Then an
engineer worked out how to make
machines do a lot of the work. Herman
Hollerith invented a tabulating machine
that would automatically add up
information that the Census bureau
collected. The Computing Tabulating
Recording Corporation (which later
became IBM) made his machines. They
leased the machines instead of selling
them. Makers of machines had long
helped their users understand and repair
them, and CTR's tech support was
especially good.

Because of machines like this, new ways

of talking to these machines were
invented, and new types of machines
were invented, and eventually the
computer as we know it was born.
Analog and digital computers

In the first half of the 20th century,

scientists started using computers,
mostly because scientists had a lot of
math to figure out and wanted to spend
more of their time thinking about science
questions instead of spending hours
adding numbers together. For example, if
they had to launch a rocket ship, they
needed to do a lot of math to make sure
the rocket worked right. So they put
together computers. These analog
computers used analog circuits, which
made them very hard to program. In the
1930s, they invented digital computers,
and soon made them easier to program.
However this is not the case as many
consecutive attempts have been made to
bring arithmetic logic to l3.Analog
computers are mechanical or electronic
devices which solve problems.Some are
used to control machines as well.

High-scale computers

Scientists figured out how to make and

use digital computers in the 1930s to
1940s. Scientists made a lot of digital
computers, and as they did, they figured
out how to ask them the right sorts of
questions to get the most out of them.
Here are a few of the computers they
built:
Defining characteristics of some early digital computers of the 1940s (In the history of
computing hardware)

First Numeral Computing Turing

Name Programming
operational system mechanism complete

Zuse Z3 Electro- Program-controlled by

May 1941 Binary Yes (1998)
(Germany) mechanical punched film stock

Atanasoff–
Not programmable—
Berry Computer mid-1941 Binary Electronic No
single purpose
(US)

Program-controlled by
January
Colossus (UK) Binary Electronic patch cables and No
1944
switches

Program-controlled by 24-
Harvard Mark I
Electro- channel punched paper
– IBM ASCC 1944 Decimal No
mechanical tape (but no conditional
(US)
branch)

Program-controlled by
November
ENIAC (US) Decimal Electronic patch cables and Yes
1945
switches

Manchester
Stored-program in
Small-Scale
June 1948 Binary Electronic Williams cathode ray tube Yes
Experimental
memory
Machine (UK)

Program-controlled by
patch cables and
switches plus a primitive
Modified ENIAC September
Decimal Electronic read-only stored Yes
(US) 1948
programming mechanism
using the Function Tables
as program ROM

Stored-program in
EDSAC (UK) May 1949 Binary Electronic mercury delay line Yes
memory

Manchester October Binary Electronic Stored-program in Yes

Mark 1 (UK) 1949 Williams cathode ray tube
 memory and magnetic
drum memory

Stored-program in
CSIRAC November
Binary Electronic mercury delay line Yes
(Australia) 1949
memory

EDSAC was one of the first computers that remembered what you told it even after you turned the power off. This is
called (von Neumann) architecture.

Konrad Zuse's electromechanical "Z

machines". The Z3 (1941) was the first
working machine that used binary
arithmetic. Binary arithmetic means
using "Yes" and "No." to add numbers
together. You could also program it. In
1998 the Z3 was proved to be Turing
complete. Turing complete means that
it is possible to tell this particular
computer anything that it is
mathematically possible to tell a
computer. It is the world's first modern
computer.
The non-programmable Atanasoff–
Berry Computer (1941) which used
vacuum tubes to store "yes" and "no"
answers, and regenerative capacitor
memory.
The Harvard Mark I (1944), A big
computer that you could kind of
program.
The U.S. Army's Ballistics Research
Laboratory ENIAC (1946), which could
 add numbers the way people do (using
the numbers 0 through 9) and is
sometimes called the first general
purpose electronic computer (since
Konrad Zuse's Z3 of 1941 used
electromagnets instead of
electronics). At first, however, the only
way to reprogram ENIAC was by
rewiring it.

Several developers of ENIAC saw its

problems. They invented a way to for a
computer to remember what they had
told it, and a way to change what it
remembered. This is known as "stored
program architecture" or von Neumann
architecture. John von Neumann talked
about this design in the paper First Draft
of a Report on the EDVAC, distributed in
1945. A number of projects to develop
computers based on the stored-program
architecture started around this time.
The first of these was completed in Great
Britain. The first to be demonstrated
working was the Manchester Small-Scale
Experimental Machine (SSEM or "Baby"),
while the EDSAC, completed a year after
SSEM, was the first really useful
computer that used the stored program
design. Shortly afterwards, the machine
originally described by von Neumann's
paper—EDVAC—was completed but was
not ready for two years.
Nearly all modern computers use the
stored-program architecture. It has
become the main concept which defines
a modern computer. The technologies
used to build computers have changed
since the 1940s, but many current
computers still use the von-Neumann
architecture.

Microprocessors are miniaturized devices that often implement stored program CPUs.

In the 1950s computers were built out of

mostly vacuum tubes. Transistors
replaced vacuum tubes in the 1960s
because they were smaller and cheaper.
They also need less power and do not
break down as much as vacuum tubes.
In the 1970s, technologies were based
on integrated circuits. Microprocessors,
such as the Intel 4004 made computers
smaller, cheaper, faster and more
reliable. By the 1980s, microcontrollers
became small and cheap enough to
replace mechanical controls in things like
washing machines. The 1980s also saw
home computers and personal
computers. With the evolution of the
Internet, personal computers are
becoming as common as the television
and the telephone in the household.
In 2005 Nokia started to call some of its
mobile phones (the N-series)
"multimedia computers" and after the
launch of the Apple iPhone in 2007, many
are now starting to add the smartphone
category among "real" computers. In
2008, if smartphones are included in the
numbers of computers in the world, the
biggest computer maker by units sold,
was no longer Hewlett-Packard, but
rather Nokia.[9]

Kinds of computers
There are many types of computers.
Some include:

1. personal computer
 2. workstation
3. mainframe
4. minicomputer
5. supercomputer
6. embedded system
7. tablet computer
8. quantum computers

A "desktop computer" is a small machine

that has a screen (which is not part of
the computer). Most people keep them
on top of a desk, which is why they are
called "desktop computers." "Laptop
computers" are computers small enough
to fit on your lap. This makes them easy
to carry around. Both laptops and
desktops are called personal computers,
because one person at a time uses them
for things like playing music, surfing the
web, or playing video games.

There are larger computers that can be

used by multiple people at the same
time. These are called "mainframes," and
these computers do all the things that
make things like the internet work. You
can think of a personal computer like
this: the personal computer is like your
skin: you can see it, other people can see
it, and through your skin you feel wind,
water, air, and the rest of the world. A
mainframe is more like your internal
organs: you never see them, and you
barely even think about them, but if they
suddenly went missing, you would have
some very big problems.

An embedded computer, also called an

embedded system is a computer that
does one thing and one thing only, and
usually does it very well. For example, an
alarm clock is an embedded computer. It
tells the time. Unlike your personal
computer, you cannot use your clock to
play Tetris. Because of this, we say that
embedded computers cannot be
programmed because you cannot install
more programs on your clock. Some
mobile phones, automatic teller
machines, microwave ovens, CD players
and cars are operated by embedded
computers.

All-in-one PC

All-in-one computers are desktop

computers that have all of the
computer's inner mechanisms in the
same case as the monitor. Apple has
made several popular examples of all-in-
one computers, such as the original
Macintosh of the mid-1980s and the
iMac of the late 1990s and 2000s.
Uses of computers

At home

Playing computer games

Writing
Solving math problems
Watching videos
Listening to music and audio
Audio, Video and photo editing
Creating sound or video
Communicating with other people
Using The Internet
Online shopping
Drawing
 Online bill payments
Online business

At work

Word processing
Spreadsheets
Presentations
Photo Editing
E-mail
Video editing/rendering/encoding
Audio recording
System Management
Website Development
Software Development
Working methods
Computers store data and the
instructions as numbers, because
computers can do things with numbers
very quickly. These data are stored as
binary symbols (1s and 0s). A 1 or a 0
symbol stored by a computer is called a
bit, which comes from the words binary
digit. Computers can use many bits
together to represent instructions and
the data that these instructions use. A
list of instructions is called a program
and is stored on the computer's hard
disk. Computers work through the
program by using a central processing
unit, and they use fast memory called
RAM (also known as Random Access
Memory) as a space to store the
instructions and data while they are
doing this. When the computer wants to
store the results of the program for later,
it uses the hard disk because things
stored on a hard disk can still be
remembered after the computer is turned
off.

An operating system tells the computer

how to understand what jobs it has to do,
how to do these jobs, and how to tell
people the results. Millions of computers
may be using the same operating
system, while each computer can have
its own application programs to do what
its user needs. Using the same operating
systems makes it easy to learn how to
use computers for new things. A user
who needs to use a computer for
something different, can learn how to use
a new application program. Some
operating systems can have simple
command lines or a fully user-friendly
GUI.

The Internet
One of the most important jobs that
computers do for people is helping with
communication. Communication is how
people share information. Computers
have helped people move forward in
science, medicine, business, and
learning, because they let experts from
anywhere in the world work with each
other and share information. They also
let other people communicate with each
other, do their jobs almost anywhere,
learn about almost anything, or share
their opinions with each other. The
Internet is the thing that lets people
communicate between their computers.

Computers and waste

A computer is now almost always an
electronic device. It usually contains
materials that will become electronic
waste when discarded. When a new
computer is bought in some places, laws
require that the cost of its waste
management must also be paid for. This
is called product stewardship.

Computers can become obsolete quickly,

depending on what programs the user
runs. Very often, they are thrown away
within two or three years, because some
newer programs require a more powerful
computer. This makes the problem
worse, so computer recycling happens a
lot. Many projects try to send working
computers to developing nations so they
can be re-used and will not become
waste as quickly, as most people do not
need to run new programs. Some
computer parts, such as hard drives, can
break easily. When these parts end up in
the landfill, they can put poisonous
chemicals like lead into the ground-
water. Hard drives can also contain
secret information like credit card
numbers. If the hard drive is not erased
before being thrown away, an identity
thief can get the information from the
hard drive, even if the drive doesn't work,
and use it to steal money from the
previous owner's bank account.

Main hardware
Computers come in different forms, but
most of them have a common design.

All computers have a CPU.

 All computers have some kind of data
bus which lets them get inputs or
output things to the environment.
All computers have some form of
memory. These are usually chips
(integrated circuits) which can hold
information.
Many computers have some kind of
sensors, which lets them get input
from their environment.
Many computers have some kind of
display device, which lets them show
output. They may also have other
peripheral devices connected.

A computer has several main parts.

When comparing a computer to a human
body, the CPU is like a brain. It does most
of the thinking and tells the rest of the
computer how to work. The CPU is on the
Motherboard, which is like the skeleton.
It provides the basis for where the other
parts go, and carries the nerves that
connect them to each other and the CPU.
The motherboard is connected to a
power supply, which provides electricity
to the entire computer. The various drives
(CD drive, floppy drive, and on many
newer computers, USB flash drive) act
like eyes, ears, and fingers, and allow the
computer to read different types of
storage, in the same way that a human
can read different types of books. The
hard drive is like a human's memory, and
keeps track of all the data stored on the
computer. Most computers have a sound
card or another method of making sound,
which is like vocal cords, or a voice box.
Connected to the sound card are
speakers, which are like a mouth, and are
where the sound comes out. Computers
might also have a graphics card, which
helps the computer to create visual
effects, such as 3D environments, or
more realistic colors, and more powerful
graphics cards can make more realistic
or more advanced images, in the same
way a well trained artist can.
Largest computer
companies
Sales
Company name
(US $ billion)

Apple 220,000

Samsung 212,680

Foxconn 132,070

HP (Hewlett-Packard) 112,300

IBM 99,750

Hitachi 87,510

Microsoft 86,830

Amazon 74,450

Sony 72,340

Panasonic 70,830

Google 59,820

Dell 56,940

Toshiba 56,200

LG 54,750

Intel 52,700

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