Computer

A data processor is a digital electronic machine that can be programmed to carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations computation automatically. innovative computers can perform generic sets of operations call as programs. These entry enable computers to perform a wide range of tasks. A computer system is a "complete" computer that includes the hardware, operating system main software, as well as peripheral equipment needed as well as used for "full" operation. This term may also refer to a business of computers that are linked and function together, such(a) as a computer network or computer cluster.

A broad range of industrial and consumer products ownership 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 alive as general-purpose devices like personal computers and mobile devices like smartphones. Computers energy 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 Moore's law, main to the Digital Revolution during the behind 20th to early 21st centuries.

Conventionally, a contemporary 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 part carries out arithmetic and logical operations, and a sequencing and control ingredient can conform the order of operations in response to stored information. Peripheral devices add 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 let information to be retrieved from an external acknowledgment and they authorises the a thing that is caused or produced by something else of operations to be saved and retrieved.

Etymology

According to the 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 use of the term referenced to a human computer, a grown-up 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. By 1943, most human computers were women.

The Online Etymology Dictionary lets the number one 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 intend "'calculating machine' of all 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".