Computer

A computer is a machine that can be

instructed to carry out sequences of
arithmetic or logical operations
automatically via computer
programming. Modern computers have
the ability to follow generalized sets of
operations, called programs. These
programs enable computers to perform
an extremely wide range of tasks. A
"complete" computer including the
hardware, the operating system (main
software), and peripheral equipment
required and used for "full" operation can
be referred to as a computer system.
This term may as well be used for a
group of computers that are connected
and work together, in particular a
computer network or computer cluster.

Computers are used as control systems

for a wide variety of industrial and
consumer devices. This includes simple
special purpose
Computer
devices like
microwave ovens
and remote
controls, factory
devices such as Computers and
industrial robots computing devices
and computer- from different eras

aided design, and

also general
purpose devices like personal computers
and mobile devices such as
smartphones. The Internet is run on
computers and it connects hundreds of
millions of other computers and their
users.

Early computers were only conceived as

calculating devices. Since ancient times,
simple manual devices like the abacus
aided people in doing calculations. Early
in the Industrial Revolution, some
mechanical devices were built to
automate long tedious tasks, such as
guiding patterns for looms. More
sophisticated electrical machines did
specialized analog calculations in the
early 20th century. The first digital
electronic calculating machines were
developed during World War II. The first
semiconductor transistors in the late
1940s were followed by the silicon-
based MOSFET (MOS transistor) and
monolithic integrated circuit (IC) chip
technologies in the late 1950s, leading to
the microprocessor and the
microcomputer revolution in the 1970s.
The speed, power and versatility of
computers have been increasing
dramatically ever since then, with MOS
transistor counts increasing at a rapid
pace (as predicted by Moore's law),
leading to the Digital Revolution during
the late 20th to early 21st centuries.

Conventionally, a modern computer

consists of at least one processing
element, typically a central processing
unit (CPU) in the form of a metal-oxide-
semiconductor (MOS) microprocessor,
along with some type of computer
memory, typically MOS semiconductor
memory chips. The processing element
carries out arithmetic and logical
operations, and a sequencing and
control unit can change the order of
operations in response to stored
information. Peripheral devices include
input devices (keyboards, mice, joystick,
etc.), output devices (monitor screens,
printers, etc.), and input/output devices
that perform both functions (e.g., the
2000s-era touchscreen). Peripheral
devices allow information to be retrieved
from an external source and they enable
the result of operations to be saved and
retrieved.

Etymology
A female computer, with microscope and
calculator, 1952

According to the Oxford English

Dictionary, the first known use of the
word "computer" was in 1613 in a book
called The Yong Mans Gleanings by
English writer Richard Braithwait: "I haue
[sic] read the truest computer of Times,
and the best Arithmetician that euer [sic]
breathed, and he reduceth thy dayes into
a short number." This usage of the term
referred to a human computer, a person
who carried out calculations or
computations. The word continued with
the same meaning until the middle of the
20th century. During the latter part of this
period women were often hired as
computers because they could be paid
less than their male counterparts.[1] By
1943, most human computers were
women.[2]
The Online Etymology Dictionary gives
the first attested use of "computer" in the
1640s, meaning "one who calculates";
this is an "agent noun from compute
(v.)". The Online Etymology Dictionary
states that the use of the term to mean
" 'calculating machine' (of any type) is
from 1897." The Online Etymology
Dictionary indicates that the "modern
use" of the term, to mean
"programmable digital electronic
computer" dates from "1945 under this
name; [in a] theoretical [sense] from
1937, as Turing machine".[3]
History
Pre-20th century

The Ishango bone, a bone tool dating back to

prehistoric Africa.

Devices have been used to aid

computation for thousands of years,
mostly using one-to-one
correspondence with fingers. The
earliest counting device was probably a
form of tally stick. Later record keeping
aids throughout the Fertile Crescent
included calculi (clay spheres, cones,
etc.) which represented counts of items,
probably livestock or grains, sealed in
hollow unbaked clay containers.[4][5] The
use of counting rods is one example.

The Chinese suanpan (算盘). The number

represented on this abacus is 6,302,715,408.
The abacus was initially used for
arithmetic tasks. The Roman abacus was
developed from devices used in
Babylonia as early as 2400 BC. Since
then, many other forms of reckoning
boards or tables have been invented. In
a medieval European counting house, a
checkered cloth would be placed on a
table, and markers moved around on it
according to certain rules, as an aid to
calculating sums of money.
The Antikythera mechanism, dating back to
ancient Greece circa 150–100 BC, is an early
analog computing device.

The Antikythera mechanism is believed

to be the earliest mechanical analog
"computer", according to Derek J. de
Solla Price.[6] It was designed to
calculate astronomical positions. It was
discovered in 1901 in the Antikythera
wreck off the Greek island of
Antikythera, between Kythera and Crete,
and has been dated to c. 100 BC.
Devices of a level of complexity
comparable to that of the Antikythera
mechanism would not reappear until a
thousand years later.

Many mechanical aids to calculation and

measurement were constructed for
astronomical and navigation use. The
planisphere was a star chart invented by
Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī in the early 11th
century.[7] The astrolabe was invented in
the Hellenistic world in either the 1st or
2nd centuries BC and is often attributed
to Hipparchus. A combination of the
planisphere and dioptra, the astrolabe
was effectively an analog computer
capable of working out several different
kinds of problems in spherical
astronomy. An astrolabe incorporating a
mechanical calendar computer[8][9] and
gear-wheels was invented by Abi Bakr of
Isfahan, Persia in 1235.[10] Abū Rayhān
al-Bīrūnī invented the first mechanical
geared lunisolar calendar astrolabe,[11]
an early fixed-wired knowledge
processing machine[12] with a gear train
and gear-wheels,[13] c. 1000 AD.

The sector, a calculating instrument used

for solving problems in proportion,
trigonometry, multiplication and division,
and for various functions, such as
squares and cube roots, was developed
in the late 16th century and found
application in gunnery, surveying and
navigation.

The planimeter was a manual instrument

to calculate the area of a closed figure
by tracing over it with a mechanical
linkage.

A slide rule.

The slide rule was invented around

1620–1630, shortly after the publication
of the concept of the logarithm. It is a
hand-operated analog computer for
doing multiplication and division. As slide
rule development progressed, added
scales provided reciprocals, squares and
square roots, cubes and cube roots, as
well as transcendental functions such as
logarithms and exponentials, circular and
hyperbolic trigonometry and other
functions. Slide rules with special scales
are still used for quick performance of
routine calculations, such as the E6B
circular slide rule used for time and
distance calculations on light aircraft.

In the 1770s, Pierre Jaquet-Droz, a Swiss

watchmaker, built a mechanical doll
(automaton) that could write holding a
quill pen. By switching the number and
order of its internal wheels different
letters, and hence different messages,
could be produced. In effect, it could be
mechanically "programmed" to read
instructions. Along with two other
complex machines, the doll is at the
Musée d'Art et d'Histoire of Neuchâtel,
Switzerland, and still operates.[14]

The tide-predicting machine invented by

Sir William Thomson in 1872 was of great
utility to navigation in shallow waters. It
used a system of pulleys and wires to
automatically calculate predicted tide
levels for a set period at a particular
location.

The differential analyser, a mechanical

analog computer designed to solve
differential equations by integration,
used wheel-and-disc mechanisms to
perform the integration. In 1876, Lord
Kelvin had already discussed the
possible construction of such
calculators, but he had been stymied by
the limited output torque of the ball-and-
disk integrators.[15] In a differential
analyzer, the output of one integrator
drove the input of the next integrator, or
a graphing output. The torque amplifier
was the advance that allowed these
machines to work. Starting in the 1920s,
Vannevar Bush and others developed
mechanical differential analyzers.

First computing device

A portion of Babbage's Difference engine.

Charles Babbage, an English mechanical

engineer and polymath, originated the
concept of a programmable computer.
Considered the "father of the
computer",[16] he conceptualized and
invented the first mechanical computer
in the early 19th century. After working
on his revolutionary difference engine,
designed to aid in navigational
calculations, in 1833 he realized that a
much more general design, an Analytical
Engine, was possible. The input of
programs and data was to be provided
to the machine via punched cards, a
method being used at the time to direct
mechanical looms such as the Jacquard
loom. For output, the machine would
have a printer, a curve plotter and a bell.
The machine would also be able to
punch numbers onto cards to be read in
later. The Engine incorporated an
arithmetic logic unit, control flow in the
form of conditional branching and loops,
and integrated memory, making it the
first design for a general-purpose
computer that could be described in
modern terms as Turing-complete.[17][18]

The machine was about a century ahead

of its time. All the parts for his machine
had to be made by hand – this was a
major problem for a device with
thousands of parts. Eventually, the
project was dissolved with the decision
of the British Government to cease
funding. Babbage's failure to complete
the analytical engine can be chiefly
attributed to political and financial
difficulties as well as his desire to
develop an increasingly sophisticated
computer and to move ahead faster than
anyone else could follow. Nevertheless,
his son, Henry Babbage, completed a
simplified version of the analytical
engine's computing unit (the mill) in
1888. He gave a successful
demonstration of its use in computing
tables in 1906.
Analog computers

Sir William Thomson's third tide-predicting

machine design, 1879–81

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.[19] The first modern analog
computer was a tide-predicting
machine, invented by Sir William
Thomson in 1872. The differential
analyser, a mechanical analog computer
designed to solve differential equations
by integration using wheel-and-disc
mechanisms, was conceptualized in
1876 by James Thomson, the brother of
the more famous Lord Kelvin.[15]
The art of mechanical analog computing
reached its zenith with the differential
analyzer, built by H. L. Hazen and
Vannevar Bush at MIT starting in 1927.
This built on the mechanical integrators
of James Thomson and the torque
amplifiers invented by H. W. Nieman. A
dozen of these devices were built before
their obsolescence became obvious. By
the 1950s, the success of digital
electronic computers had spelled the
end for most analog computing
machines, but analog computers
remained in use during the 1950s in
some specialized applications such as
education (control systems) and aircraft
(slide rule).

Digital computers

It has been suggested that this section be split

out into another article titled Digital computer.

Electromechanical

By 1938, the United States Navy had

developed an electromechanical analog
computer small enough to use aboard a
submarine. This was the Torpedo Data
Computer, which used trigonometry to
solve the problem of firing a torpedo at a
moving target. During World War II
similar devices were developed in other
countries as well.

Replica of Zuse's Z3, the first fully automatic,

digital (electromechanical) computer.

Early digital computers were

electromechanical; electric switches
drove mechanical relays to perform the
calculation. These devices had a low
operating speed and were eventually
superseded by much faster all-electric
computers, originally using vacuum
tubes. The Z2, created by German
engineer Konrad Zuse in 1939, was one
of the earliest examples of an
electromechanical relay computer.[20]

In 1941, Zuse followed his earlier

machine up with the Z3, the world's first
working electromechanical
programmable, fully automatic digital
computer.[21][22] The Z3 was built with
2000 relays, implementing a 22 bit word
length that operated at a clock
frequency of about 5–10 Hz.[23]
Program code was supplied on punched
film while data could be stored in 64
words of memory or supplied from the
keyboard. It was quite similar to modern
machines in some respects, pioneering
numerous advances such as floating
point numbers. Rather than the harder-
to-implement decimal system (used in
Charles Babbage's earlier design), using
a binary system meant that Zuse's
machines were easier to build and
potentially more reliable, given the
technologies available at that time.[24]
The Z3 was Turing complete.[25][26]

Vacuum tubes and digital electronic

circuits

Purely electronic circuit elements soon

replaced their mechanical and
electromechanical equivalents, at the
same time that digital calculation
replaced analog. The engineer Tommy
Flowers, working at the Post Office
Research Station in London in the 1930s,
began to explore the possible use of
electronics for the telephone exchange.
Experimental equipment that he built in
1934 went into operation five years later,
converting a portion of the telephone
exchange network into an electronic
data processing system, using
thousands of vacuum tubes.[19] In the
US, John Vincent Atanasoff and Clifford
E. Berry of Iowa State University
developed and tested the Atanasoff–
Berry Computer (ABC) in 1942,[27] the
first "automatic electronic digital
computer".[28] This design was also all-
electronic and used about 300 vacuum
tubes, with capacitors fixed in a
mechanically rotating drum for
memory.[29]

Colossus, the first electronic digital programmable

computing device, was used to break German
ciphers during World War II.

During World War II, the British at

Bletchley Park achieved a number of
successes at breaking encrypted
German military communications. The
German encryption machine, Enigma,
was first attacked with the help of the
electro-mechanical bombes which were
often run by women.[30][31] To crack the
more sophisticated German Lorenz SZ
40/42 machine, used for high-level Army
communications, Max Newman and his
colleagues commissioned Flowers to
build the Colossus.[29] He spent eleven
months from early February 1943
designing and building the first
Colossus.[32] After a functional test in
December 1943, Colossus was shipped
to Bletchley Park, where it was delivered
on 18 January 1944[33] and attacked its
first message on 5 February.[29]

Colossus was the world's first electronic

digital programmable computer.[19] It
used a large number of valves (vacuum
tubes). It had paper-tape input and was
capable of being configured to perform
a variety of boolean logical operations
on its data, but it was not Turing-
complete. Nine Mk II Colossi were built
(The Mk I was converted to a Mk II
making ten machines in total). Colossus
Mark I contained 1,500 thermionic valves
(tubes), but Mark II with 2,400 valves,
was both 5 times faster and simpler to
operate than Mark I, greatly speeding the
decoding process.[34][35]

ENIAC was the first electronic, Turing-complete

device, and performed ballistics trajectory
calculations for the United States Army.
The ENIAC[36] (Electronic Numerical
Integrator and Computer) was the first
electronic programmable computer built
in the U.S. Although the ENIAC was
similar to the Colossus, it was much
faster, more flexible, and it was Turing-
complete. Like the Colossus, a
"program" on the ENIAC was defined by
the states of its patch cables and
switches, a far cry from the stored
program electronic machines that came
later. Once a program was written, it had
to be mechanically set into the machine
with manual resetting of plugs and
switches. The programmers of the
ENIAC were six women, often known
collectively as the "ENIAC girls".[37][38]

It combined the high speed of

electronics with the ability to be
programmed for many complex
problems. It could add or subtract 5000
times a second, a thousand times faster
than any other machine. It also had
modules to multiply, divide, and square
root. High speed memory was limited to
20 words (about 80 bytes). Built under
the direction of John Mauchly and J.
Presper Eckert at the University of
Pennsylvania, ENIAC's development and
construction lasted from 1943 to full
operation at the end of 1945. The
machine was huge, weighing 30 tons,
using 200 kilowatts of electric power and
contained over 18,000 vacuum tubes,
1,500 relays, and hundreds of thousands
of resistors, capacitors, and
inductors.[39]

Modern computers

Concept of modern computer

The principle of the modern computer
was proposed by Alan Turing in his
seminal 1936 paper,[40] On Computable
Numbers. Turing proposed a simple
device that he called "Universal
Computing machine" and that is now
known as a universal Turing machine. He
proved that such a machine is capable
of computing anything that is
computable by executing instructions
(program) stored on tape, allowing the
machine to be programmable. The
fundamental concept of Turing's design
is the stored program, where all the
instructions for computing are stored in
memory. Von Neumann acknowledged
that the central concept of the modern
computer was due to this paper.[41]
Turing machines are to this day a central
object of study in theory of computation.
Except for the limitations imposed by
their finite memory stores, modern
computers are said to be Turing-
complete, which is to say, they have
algorithm execution capability equivalent
to a universal Turing machine.

Stored programs
A section of the Manchester Baby, the first
electronic stored-program computer.

Early computing machines had fixed

programs. Changing its function required
the re-wiring and re-structuring of the
machine.[29] With the proposal of the
stored-program computer this changed.
A stored-program computer includes by
design an instruction set and can store in
memory a set of instructions (a program)
that details the computation. The
theoretical basis for the stored-program
computer was laid by Alan Turing in his
1936 paper. In 1945, Turing joined the
National Physical Laboratory and began
work on developing an electronic
stored-program digital computer. His
1945 report "Proposed Electronic
Calculator" was the first specification for
such a device. John von Neumann at the
University of Pennsylvania also
circulated his First Draft of a Report on
the EDVAC in 1945.[19]
The Manchester Baby was the world's
first stored-program computer. It was
built at the Victoria University of
Manchester by Frederic C. Williams, Tom
Kilburn and Geoff Tootill, and ran its first
program on 21 June 1948.[42] It was
designed as a testbed for the Williams
tube, the first random-access digital
storage device.[43] Although the
computer was considered "small and
primitive" by the standards of its time, it
was the first working machine to contain
all of the elements essential to a modern
electronic computer.[44] As soon as the
Baby had demonstrated the feasibility of
its design, a project was initiated at the
university to develop it into a more
usable computer, the Manchester Mark
1. Grace Hopper was the first person to
develop a compiler for programming
language.[2]

The Mark 1 in turn quickly became the

prototype for the Ferranti Mark 1, the
world's first commercially available
general-purpose computer.[45] Built by
Ferranti, it was delivered to the University
of Manchester in February 1951. At least
seven of these later machines were
delivered between 1953 and 1957, one
of them to Shell labs in Amsterdam.[46] In
October 1947, the directors of British
catering company J. Lyons & Company
decided to take an active role in
promoting the commercial development
of computers. The LEO I computer
became operational in April 1951[47] and
ran the world's first regular routine office
computer job.

Transistors
A bipolar junction transistor.

The concept of a field-effect transistor

was proposed by Julius Edgar Lilienfeld
in 1925. John Bardeen and Walter
Brattain, while working under William
Shockley at Bell Labs, built the first
working transistor, the point-contact
transistor, in 1947, which was followed
by Shockley's bipolar junction transistor
in 1948.[48][49] From 1955 onwards,
transistors replaced vacuum tubes in
computer designs, giving rise to the
"second generation" of computers.
Compared to vacuum tubes, transistors
have many advantages: they are smaller,
and require less power than vacuum
tubes, so give off less heat. Junction
transistors were much more reliable than
vacuum tubes and had longer, indefinite,
service life. Transistorized computers
could contain tens of thousands of
binary logic circuits in a relatively
compact space. However, early junction
transistors were relatively bulky devices
that were difficult to manufacture on a
mass-production basis, which limited
them to a number of specialised
applications.[50]

At the University of Manchester, a team

under the leadership of Tom Kilburn
designed and built a machine using the
newly developed transistors instead of
valves.[51] Their first transistorised
computer and the first in the world, was
operational by 1953, and a second
version was completed there in April
1955. However, the machine did make
use of valves to generate its 125 kHz
clock waveforms and in the circuitry to
read and write on its magnetic drum
memory, so it was not the first
completely transistorized computer. That
distinction goes to the Harwell CADET of
1955,[52] built by the electronics division
of the Atomic Energy Research
Establishment at Harwell.[52][53]
MOSFET, showing gate (G), body (B), source (S)
and drain (D) terminals. The gate is separated
from the body by an insulating layer (pink).

The metal–oxide–silicon field-effect

transistor (MOSFET), also known as the
MOS transistor, was invented by
Mohamed M. Atalla and Dawon Kahng
at Bell Labs in 1959.[54] It was the first
truly compact transistor that could be
miniaturised and mass-produced for a
wide range of uses.[50] With its high
scalability,[55] and much lower power
consumption and higher density than
bipolar junction transistors,[56] the
MOSFET made it possible to build high-
density integrated circuits.[57][58] The
MOSFET later led to the microcomputer
revolution,[59] and became the driving
force behind the computer
revolution.[60][61] The MOSFET is the
most widely used transistor in
computers,[62][63] and is the
fundamental building block of digital
electronics.[64]

Integrated circuits

The next great advance in computing

power came with the advent of the
integrated circuit (IC). The idea of the
integrated circuit was first conceived by
a radar scientist working for the Royal
Radar Establishment of the Ministry of
Defence, Geoffrey W.A. Dummer.
Dummer presented the first public
description of an integrated circuit at the
Symposium on Progress in Quality
Electronic Components in
Washington, D.C. on 7 May 1952.[65]

The first working ICs were invented by

Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments and
Robert Noyce at Fairchild
Semiconductor.[66] Kilby recorded his
initial ideas concerning the integrated
circuit in July 1958, successfully
demonstrating the first working
integrated example on 12 September
1958.[67] In his patent application of 6
February 1959, Kilby described his new
device as "a body of semiconductor
material ... wherein all the components
of the electronic circuit are completely
integrated".[68][69] However, Kilby's
invention was a hybrid integrated circuit
(hybrid IC), rather than a monolithic
integrated circuit (IC) chip.[70] Kilby's IC
had external wire connections, which
made it difficult to mass-produce.[71]

Noyce also came up with his own idea of

an integrated circuit half a year later than
Kilby.[72] Noyce's invention was the first
true monolithic IC chip.[73][71] His chip
solved many practical problems that
Kilby's had not. Produced at Fairchild
Semiconductor, it was made of silicon,
whereas Kilby's chip was made of
germanium. Noyce's monolithic IC was
fabricated using the planar process,
developed by his colleague Jean Hoerni
in early 1959. In turn, the planar process
was based on the silicon surface
passivation and thermal oxidation
processes developed by Mohamed
Atalla at Bell Labs in the late
1950s.[74][75][76]

Modern monolithic ICs are

predominantly MOS (metal-oxide-
semiconductor) integrated circuits, built
from MOSFETs (MOS transistors).[77]
After the first MOSFET was invented by
Mohamed Atalla and Dawon Kahng at
Bell Labs in 1959,[78] Atalla first
proposed the concept of the MOS
integrated circuit in 1960, followed by
Kahng in 1961, both noting that the MOS
transistor's ease of fabrication made it
useful for integrated circuits.[50][79] The
earliest experimental MOS IC to be
fabricated was a 16-transistor chip built
by Fred Heiman and Steven Hofstein at
RCA in 1962.[80] General
Microelectronics later introduced the first
commercial MOS IC in 1964,[81]
developed by Robert Norman.[80]
Following the development of the self-
aligned gate (silicon-gate) MOS
transistor by Robert Kerwin, Donald Klein
and John Sarace at Bell Labs in 1967,
the first silicon-gate MOS IC with self-
aligned gates was developed by
Federico Faggin at Fairchild
Semiconductor in 1968.[82] The MOSFET
has since become the most critical
device component in modern ICs.[83]

The development of the MOS integrated

circuit led to the invention of the
microprocessor,[84][85] and heralded an
explosion in the commercial and
personal use of computers. While the
subject of exactly which device was the
first microprocessor is contentious, partly
due to lack of agreement on the exact
definition of the term "microprocessor", it
is largely undisputed that the first single-
chip microprocessor was the Intel
4004,[86] designed and realized by
Federico Faggin with his silicon-gate
MOS IC technology,[84] along with Ted
Hoff, Masatoshi Shima and Stanley
Mazor at Intel.[87][88] In the early 1970s,
MOS IC technology enabled the
integration of more than 10,000
transistors on a single chip.[58]
System on a Chip (SoCs) are complete
computers on a microchip (or chip) the
size of a coin.[89] They may or may not
have integrated RAM and flash memory.
If not integrated, The RAM is usually
placed directly above (known as
Package on package) or below (on the
opposite side of the circuit board) the
SoC, and the flash memory is usually
placed right next to the SoC, this all done
to improve data transfer speeds, as the
data signals don't have to travel long
distances. Since ENIAC in 1945,
computers have advanced enormously,
with modern SoCs being the size of a
coin while also being hundreds of
thousands of times more powerful than
ENIAC, integrating billions of transistors,
and consuming only a few watts of
power.

Mobile computers

The first mobile computers were heavy

and ran from mains power. The 50lb IBM
5100 was an early example. Later
portables such as the Osborne 1 and
Compaq Portable were considerably
lighter but still needed to be plugged in.
The first laptops, such as the Grid
Compass, removed this requirement by
incorporating batteries – and with the
continued miniaturization of computing
resources and advancements in portable
battery life, portable computers grew in
popularity in the 2000s.[90] The same
developments allowed manufacturers to
integrate computing resources into
cellular mobile phones by the early
2000s.
These smartphones and tablets run on a
variety of operating systems and
recently became the dominant
computing device on the market.[91]
These are powered by System on a Chip
(SoCs), which are complete computers
on a microchip the size of a coin.[89]

Types
Computers can be classified in a number
of different ways, including:

By architecture
 Analog computer
Digital computer
Hybrid computer
Harvard architecture
Von Neumann architecture
Reduced instruction set computer

By size and form-factor

Mainframe computer
Supercomputer
Minicomputer
Microcomputer
Workstation
 Personal computer
Laptop
Tablet computer
Smartphone
Single-board computer

Hardware

Play media
Video demonstrating the standard components of
a "slimline" computer
The term hardware covers all of those
parts of a computer that are tangible
physical objects. Circuits, computer
chips, graphic cards, sound cards,
memory (RAM), motherboard, displays,
power supplies, cables, keyboards,
printers and "mice" input devices are all
hardware.

History of computing hardware

 Pascal's calculator,
Arithmometer, Difference
Calculators
engine, Quevedo's analytical
First generation machines
(mechanical/electromechanical) Jacquard loom, Analytical
engine, IBM ASCC/Harvard
Programmable devices
Mark I, Harvard Mark II, IBM
SSEC, Z1, Z2, Z3

Atanasoff–Berry Computer,
Calculators IBM 604, UNIVAC 60, UNIVAC
120

Colossus, ENIAC, Manchester

Second generation (vacuum
Baby, EDSAC, Manchester
tubes)
Mark 1, Ferranti Pegasus,
Programmable devices
Ferranti Mercury, CSIRAC,
EDVAC, UNIVAC I, IBM 701,
IBM 702, IBM 650, Z22

IBM 7090, IBM 7080, IBM

Mainframes
System/360, BUNCH
Third generation (discrete
HP 2116A, IBM System/32,
transistors and SSI, MSI, LSI
Minicomputer IBM System/36, LINC, PDP-8,
integrated circuits)
PDP-11

Desktop Computer Programma 101, HP 9100

Fourth generation (VLSI Minicomputer VAX, IBM System i

integrated circuits) 4-bit microcomputer Intel 4004, Intel 4040

Intel 8008, Intel 8080,

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

16-bit microcomputer Intel 8088, Zilog Z8000, WDC

 65816/65802

Intel 80386, Pentium, Motorola

32-bit microcomputer
68000, ARM

Alpha, MIPS, PA-RISC,

64-bit microcomputer[92] PowerPC, SPARC, x86-64,
ARMv8-A

Embedded computer Intel 8048, Intel 8051

Desktop computer, Home

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

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

Other hardware topics

 Mouse, keyboard, joystick, image scanner,
Input
webcam, graphics tablet, microphone
Peripheral device
Output Monitor, printer, loudspeaker
(input/output)
Floppy disk drive, hard disk drive, optical disc
Both
drive, teleprinter

Short range RS-232, SCSI, PCI, USB

Long range
Computer buses
(computer Ethernet, ATM, FDDI
networking)

A general purpose computer has four

main components: the arithmetic logic
unit (ALU), the control unit, the memory,
and the input and output devices
(collectively termed I/O). These parts are
interconnected by buses, often made of
groups of wires. Inside each of these
parts are thousands to trillions of small
electrical circuits which can be turned off
or on by means of an electronic switch.
Each circuit represents a bit (binary digit)
of information so that when the circuit is
on it represents a "1", and when off it
represents a "0" (in positive logic
representation). The circuits are
arranged in logic gates so that one or
more of the circuits may control the state
of one or more of the other circuits.

Input devices

When unprocessed data is sent to the

computer with the help of input devices,
the data is processed and sent to output
devices. The input devices may be
hand-operated or automated. The act of
processing is mainly regulated by the
CPU. Some examples of input devices
are:

Computer keyboard
Digital camera
Digital video
Graphics tablet
Image scanner
Joystick
 Microphone
Mouse
Overlay keyboard
Real-time clock
Trackball
Touchscreen

Output devices

The means through which computer

gives output are known as output
devices. Some examples of output
devices are:

Computer monitor
 Printer
PC speaker
Projector
Sound card
Video card

Control unit

Diagram showing how a particular MIPS

architecture instruction would be decoded by the
control system
The control unit (often called a control
system or central controller) manages
the computer's various components; it
reads and interprets (decodes) the
program instructions, transforming them
into control signals that activate other
parts of the computer.[93] Control
systems in advanced computers may
change the order of execution of some
instructions 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.[94]

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).

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, which runs a
microcode program that causes all of
these events to happen.

Central processing unit (CPU)

The control unit, ALU, and registers 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.

Arithmetic logic unit (ALU)

The ALU is capable of performing two

classes of operations: arithmetic and
logic.[95] The set of arithmetic operations
that a particular ALU supports may be
limited to addition and subtraction, or
might include multiplication, division,
trigonometry functions such as sine,
cosine, etc., and square roots. Some can
only operate on whole numbers
(integers) while 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
for creating complicated conditional
statements and processing boolean
logic.

Superscalar computers may contain

multiple ALUs, allowing them to process
several instructions simultaneously.[96]
Graphics processors and computers with
SIMD and MIMD features often contain
ALUs that can perform arithmetic on
vectors and matrices.

Memory

Magnetic-core memory was the computer

memory of choice throughout the 1960s, until it
was 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 the software's
responsibility 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 (28 = 256); 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 if it can be
represented numerically. 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. As 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
read-only memory or ROM

RAM can be read and written to anytime

the CPU commands it, but ROM is
preloaded with data and software that
never changes, therefore 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 are erased when the power to the
computer is turned off, but 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
required software may be stored in
ROM. Software 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, as it retains its data
when turned off but is also rewritable. It
is typically much slower than
conventional ROM and RAM however,
so its use is restricted to applications
where high speed is unnecessary.[97]

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)

Hard disk drives are common storage devices

used with computers.

I/O is the means by which a computer

exchanges information with the outside
world.[98] Devices that provide input or
output to the computer are called
peripherals.[99] 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. I/O
devices are often 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. A 2016-era
flat screen display contains its own
computer circuitry.

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
multitasking i.e. having the computer
switch rapidly between running each
program in turn.[100] 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.[101]

Before the era of inexpensive

computers, the principal 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, but 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 simultaneously
without unacceptable speed loss.

Multiprocessing

Cray designed many supercomputers that used

multiprocessing heavily.

Some computers are designed to

distribute their work across several CPUs
in a multiprocessing configuration, a
technique once employed only in large
and powerful machines such as
supercomputers, mainframe computers
and servers. Multiprocessor and multi-
core (multiple CPUs on a single
integrated circuit) personal and laptop
computers are now widely available, and
are being increasingly used 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.[102] 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 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.

Software
Software refers to parts of the computer
which do not have a material form, such
as programs, data, protocols, etc.
Software is that part of a computer
system that consists of encoded
information or computer instructions, in
contrast to the physical hardware from
which the system is built. Computer
software includes computer programs,
libraries and related non-executable
data, such as online documentation or
digital media. It is often divided into
system software and application
software Computer hardware and
software require each other and neither
can be realistically used on its own.
When software is stored in hardware that
cannot easily be modified, such as with
BIOS ROM in an IBM PC compatible
computer, it is sometimes called
"firmware".
 UNIX System V, IBM AIX, HP-UX, Solaris (SunOS), IRIX, List of
Unix and BSD
BSD operating systems

GNU/Linux List of Linux distributions, Comparison of Linux distributions

Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000,

Microsoft
Windows ME, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7,
Operating Windows
Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10
system
DOS 86-DOS (QDOS), IBM PC DOS, MS-DOS, DR-DOS, FreeDOS
/System
Software Macintosh
operating Classic Mac OS, macOS (previously OS X and Mac OS X)
systems

Embedded
List of embedded operating systems
and real-time

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

Multimedia DirectX, OpenGL, OpenAL, Vulkan (API)

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, CDE, GEM,
interface
User Aqua
(WIMP)
interface
Text-based
Command-line interface, Text user interface
user interface

Application Word processing, Desktop publishing, Presentation program,

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

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

Raster graphics editor, Vector graphics editor, 3D modeler,

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

Digital audio editor, Audio playback, Mixing, Audio synthesis,

Audio
Computer music

Compiler, Assembler, Interpreter, Debugger, Text editor,

Software Integrated development environment, Software performance
engineering analysis, Revision control, Software configuration
management

Edutainment, Educational game, Serious game, Flight

Educational
simulator

Strategy, Arcade, Puzzle, Simulation, First-person shooter,

Games
Platform, Massively multiplayer, Interactive fiction

Artificial intelligence, Antivirus software, Malware scanner,

Misc
Installer/Package management systems, File manager

Languages

There are thousands of different

programming languages—some
intended to be general purpose, others
useful only for highly specialized
applications.
Programming languages
Lists of Timeline of programming languages, List of programming languages by
programming category, Generational list of programming languages, List of
languages programming languages, Non-English-based programming languages

Commonly used
assembly ARM, MIPS, x86
languages

Commonly used
high-level Ada, BASIC, C, C++, C#, COBOL, Fortran, PL/I, REXX, Java, Lisp, Pascal,
programming Object Pascal
languages

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

Programs

The defining feature of modern

computers which distinguishes them
from all other machines is that they can
be programmed. That is to say that some
type of instructions (the program) can be
given to the computer, and it will process
them. Modern computers based on the
von Neumann architecture often have
machine code in the form of an
imperative programming language. In
practical terms, a computer program
may be just a few instructions or extend
to many millions of instructions, as do
the programs for word processors and
web browsers for example. A typical
modern computer can execute billions of
instructions per second (gigaflops) and
rarely makes a mistake over many years
of operation. Large computer programs
consisting of several million instructions
may take teams of programmers years
to write, and due to the complexity of the
task almost certainly contain errors.

Stored program architecture

Replica of the Manchester Baby, the world's first

electronic stored-program computer, at the
Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester,
England

This section applies to most common

RAM machine–based computers.

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. The following
example is written in the MIPS assembly
language:

begin:
addi $8, $0, 0
# initialize sum to 0
addi $9, $0, 1
# set first number to add =
1
loop:
slti $10, $9, 1000
# check if the number is
less than 1000
 beq $10, $0, finish
# if odd number is greater
than n then exit
add $8, $8, $9
# update sum
addi $9, $9, 1
# get next number
j loop
# repeat the summing
process
finish:
add $2, $8, $0
# put sum in output
register
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 a fraction of a second.

Machine code

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 these
instructions) can be represented as lists
of numbers and can themselves be
manipulated inside the computer in the
same way as 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 while this
technique was used with many early
computers,[103] it is extremely tedious
and potentially error-prone 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.

A 1970s punched card containing one line from a

Fortran program. The card reads: "Z(1) = Y + W(1)"
and is labeled "PROJ039" for identification
purposes.

Programming language

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 code 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.

Low-level languages

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
smartphone or a hand-held videogame)
cannot understand the machine
language of an x86 CPU that might be in
a PC.[104]

High-level languages

Although considerably easier than in

machine language, writing long
programs in assembly language is often
difficult and is also error prone.
Therefore, most practical programs are
written in more abstract high-level
programming languages that are able to
express the needs of the 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.[105] High level languages are
less related to the workings of the target
computer than assembly language, and
more related to the language and
structure of the problem(s) to be solved
by the final program. It is therefore often
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.

Program design

This section does not cite any sources.

Program design of small programs is

relatively simple and involves the
analysis of the problem, collection of
inputs, using the programming
constructs within languages, devising or
using established procedures and
algorithms, providing data for output
devices and solutions to the problem as
applicable. As problems become larger
and more complex, features such as
subprograms, modules, formal
documentation, and new paradigms
such as object-oriented programming
are encountered. Large programs
involving thousands of line of code and
more require formal software
methodologies. The task of developing
large software systems presents a
significant intellectual challenge.
Producing software with an acceptably
high reliability within a predictable
schedule and budget has historically
been difficult; the academic and
professional discipline of software
engineering concentrates specifically on
this challenge.

Bugs
The actual first computer bug, a moth found
trapped on a relay of the Harvard Mark II
computer

Errors in computer programs are called

"bugs". They may be benign and not
affect the usefulness of the program, or
have only subtle effects. But in some
cases, they may cause the program or
the entire system to "hang", becoming
unresponsive to input such as mouse
clicks or keystrokes, to completely fail, or
to crash. Otherwise benign bugs may
sometimes be harnessed for malicious
intent by an unscrupulous user writing an
exploit, code designed to take
advantage of a bug and disrupt a
computer's proper execution. 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.[106] Admiral Grace
Hopper, an American computer scientist
and developer of the first compiler, is
credited for having first used the term
"bugs" in computing after a dead moth
was found shorting a relay in the Harvard
Mark II computer in September 1947.[107]

Networking and the Internet

Visualization of a portion of the routes on the
Internet

Computers have been used to

coordinate information between multiple
locations since the 1950s. The U.S.
military's SAGE system was the first
large-scale example of such a system,
which led to a number of special-
purpose commercial systems such as
Sabre.[108] In the 1970s, computer
engineers at research institutions
throughout the United States began to
link their computers together using
telecommunications technology. The
effort was funded by ARPA (now
DARPA), and the computer network that
resulted was called the ARPANET.[109]
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.

Unconventional computers
A computer does not need to be
electronic, nor even have a processor,
nor RAM, nor even a hard disk. While
popular usage of the word "computer" is
synonymous with a personal electronic
computer, the modern[110] definition of a
computer is literally: "A device that
computes, especially a programmable
[usually] electronic machine that
performs high-speed mathematical or
logical operations or that assembles,
stores, correlates, or otherwise
processes information."[111] Any device
which processes information qualifies as
a computer, especially if the processing
is purposeful.
Future
There is active research to make
computers out of many promising new
types of technology, such as optical
computers, DNA computers, neural
computers, and quantum computers.
Most computers are universal, and are
able to calculate any computable
function, and are limited only by their
memory capacity and operating speed.
However different designs of computers
can give very different performance for
particular problems; for example
quantum computers can potentially
break some modern encryption
algorithms (by quantum factoring) very
quickly.

Computer architecture paradigms

There are many types of computer

architectures:

Quantum computer vs. Chemical

computer
Scalar processor vs. Vector processor
 Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA)
computers
Register machine vs. Stack machine
Harvard architecture vs. von Neumann
architecture
Cellular architecture

Of all these abstract machines, a

quantum computer holds the most
promise for revolutionizing
computing.[112] Logic gates are a
common abstraction which can apply to
most of the above digital or analog
paradigms. The ability to store and
execute lists of instructions called
programs makes computers extremely
versatile, distinguishing them from
calculators. The Church–Turing thesis is
a mathematical statement of this
versatility: any computer with a minimum
capability (being Turing-complete) is, in
principle, capable of performing the
same tasks that any other computer can
perform. Therefore, any type of
computer (netbook, supercomputer,
cellular automaton, etc.) is able to
perform the same computational tasks,
given enough time and storage capacity.
Artificial intelligence

A computer will solve problems in

exactly the way it is programmed to,
without regard to efficiency, alternative
solutions, possible shortcuts, or possible
errors in the code. Computer programs
that learn and adapt are part of the
emerging field of artificial intelligence
and machine learning. Artificial
intelligence based products generally fall
into two major categories: rule based
systems and pattern recognition
systems. Rule based systems attempt to
represent the rules used by human
experts and tend to be expensive to
develop. Pattern based systems use
data about a problem to generate
conclusions. Examples of pattern based
systems include voice recognition, font
recognition, translation and the
emerging field of on-line marketing.

Professions and
organizations
As the use of computers has spread
throughout society, there are an
increasing number of careers involving
computers.

Computer-related professions
Hardware- Electrical engineering, Electronic engineering, Computer engineering,
related Telecommunications engineering, Optical engineering, Nanoengineering

Computer science, Computer engineering, Desktop publishing, Human–

Software- computer interaction, Information technology, Information systems,
related Computational science, Software engineering, Video game industry, Web
design

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, AIS, IET, IFIP, BCS

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

groups Software Foundation

See also
Glossary of computers
Computability theory
Computer insecurity
Computer security
Glossary of computer hardware terms
History of computer science
List of computer term etymologies
List of fictional computers
 List of pioneers in computer science
Pulse computation
TOP500 (list of most powerful
computers)
Unconventional computing

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