A computer is a programmable device for processing, storing, and displaying information. Learn more in this article about modern digital electronic computers and their design, constituent parts, and applications as well as about the history of computing.
A computer is a machine that can store and process information. Most computers rely on a binary system, which uses two variables, 0 and 1, to complete tasks such as storing data, calculating algorithms, and displaying information.
Computer - Technology, Invention, History: By the second decade of the 19th century, a number of ideas necessary for the invention of the computer were in the air.
Computer - History, Technology, Innovation: A computer might be described with deceptive simplicity as “an apparatus that performs routine calculations automatically.”
Computer, device for processing, storing, and displaying information. Computer once meant a person who did computations, but now the term almost universally refers to automated electronic machinery.
Since the development of the Harvard Mark I, the digital computer has evolved at a rapid pace. The succession of advances in computer equipment, principally in logic circuitry, is often divided into generations, with each generation comprising a group of machines that share a common technology.
Computer science is the study of computers and computing, including their theoretical and algorithmic foundations, hardware and software, and their uses for processing information.
Computer - Home Use, Microprocessors, Software: Before 1970, computers were big machines requiring thousands of separate transistors. They were operated by specialized technicians, who often dressed in white lab coats and were commonly referred to as a computer priesthood.
Computer - Memory, Storage, Processing: The earliest forms of computer main memory were mercury delay lines, which were tubes of mercury that stored data as ultrasonic waves, and cathode-ray tubes, which stored data as charges on the tubes’ screens.
Although other automated systems are typically controlled by computer, the term computer process control is generally associated with continuous or semicontinuous production operations involving materials such as chemicals, petroleum, foods, and certain basic metals.
