Computer

Computer
Computers and computing devices from different eras.

Top row: Automatic mechanical calculator (1820) (Difference Engine), First-generation computer
(Colossus computer)
Middle row: Early vacuum tube computer (ENIAC), Supercomputer (IBM Summit)
Bottom row: Video game console (Nintendo GameCube), Smartphone (LYF Water 2)
A computer is a digital electronic machine that can be programmed to carry

out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically.
Modern computers can perform generic sets of operations known as programs.
These programs enable computers to perform a wide range of tasks. A computer
system is a "complete" computer that includes the hardware, operating
system (main software), and peripheral equipment needed and used for "full"
operation. This term may also refer to a group of computers that are linked and
function together, such as a computer network or computer cluster.
A broad range of industrial and consumer products use computers as control
systems. Simple special-purpose devices like microwave ovens and remote
controls are included, as are factory devices like industrial robots and computer-
aided design, as well as general-purpose devices like personal
computers and mobile devices like smartphones. Computers power the Internet,
which links billions of other computers and users.
Early computers were meant to be used only for calculations. Simple manual
instruments like the abacus have aided people in doing calculations since ancient
times. 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 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 microprocessor, along
with some type of computer memory, typically 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.
Contents
• 1Etymology
• 2History
o 2.1Pre-20th century
o 2.2First computer
o 2.3Analog computers
o 2.4Digital computers
o 2.5Modern computers
o 2.6Mobile computers
• 3Types
o 3.1By architecture
o 3.2By size, form-factor and purpose
• 4Hardware
o 4.1History of computing hardware
o 4.2Other hardware topics
o 4.3Input devices
o 4.4Output devices
o 4.5Control unit
o 4.6Central processing unit (CPU)
o 4.7Arithmetic logic unit (ALU)
o 4.8Memory
o 4.9Input/output (I/O)
o 4.10Multitasking
o 4.11Multiprocessing
• 5Software
o 5.1Languages
o 5.2Programs
• 6Networking and the Internet
• 7Unconventional computers
• 8Future
o 8.1Computer architecture paradigms
o 8.2Artificial intelligence
• 9Professions and organizations
• 10See also
• 11Notes
• 12References
• 13Sources
• 14External links
Etymology
A human computer, with microscope and calculator, 1952
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first known use of computer was in
a 1613 book called The Yong Mans Gleanings by the English writer Richard
Brathwait: "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
Main articles: History of computing and History of computing hardware
For a chronological guide, see Timeline of computing.
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
most likely a form of tally stick. Later record keeping aids throughout the Fertile
Crescent included calculi (clay spheres, cones, etc.) which represented counts of
items, likely livestock or grains, sealed in hollow unbaked clay containers.[a][4] 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.[5]
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 known

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 approximately c. 100 BC.
Devices of comparable complexity to the Antikythera mechanism would not
reappear until the fourteenth century.[7]
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.[8] 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[9][10] and gear-wheels was invented by Abi Bakr
of Isfahan, Persia in 1235.[11] Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī invented the first mechanical
geared lunisolar calendar astrolabe,[12] an early fixed-wired knowledge
processing machine[13] with a gear train and gear-wheels,[14] 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 by the English clergyman William
Oughtred, 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.[15]
In 1831–1835, mathematician and engineer Giovanni Plana devised a Perpetual
Calendar machine, which, through a system of pulleys and cylinders and over,
could predict the perpetual calendar for every year from AD 0 (that is, 1 BC) to AD
4000, keeping track of leap years and varying day length. The tide-predicting
machine invented by the Scottish scientist 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, Sir William Thomson 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.[16] 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.

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Computer

Computers and computing devices from different eras.

A computer is a digital electronic machine that can be programmed to carry

The Antikythera mechanism is believed to be the earliest known

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