Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Computer

A computer is a machine for manipulate data according to a list ofcommands known as a program. Computers are tremendously adaptable. Infact, they are universal information-processing machines. According tothe Church–Turing theory, a computer with a positive minimum entrancecapability is in principle capable of performing the responsibilitiesof any other computer. Therefore, computers with capability rangingfrom those of a personal digital supporter to a supercomputer may allachieve the same tasks, as long as time and memory capacity are notconsideration. Therefore, the same computer design may be modified fortasks ranging from doling out company payrolls to controlling unmannedspaceflights. Due to technical progression, modern electroniccomputers are exponentially more capable than those of precedinggenerations. Computers take plentiful physical forms. Early electroniccomputers were the size of a large room, while whole modern embeddedcomputers may be lesser than a deck of playing cards. Even today, hugecomputing conveniences still exist for focused scientific computationand for the transaction processing necessities of large organizations.Smaller computers designed for personage use are called personalcomputers. Along with its convenient equivalent, the laptop computer,the personal computer is the ubiquitous in order processing andcommunication tool, and is typically what is meant by "a computer".However, the most general form of computer in use today is theembedded computer. Embedded computers are usually comparatively simpleand physically small computers used to control one more device. Theymay control equipment from fighter aircraft to industrial robots todigital cameras. in the beginning, the term "computer" referred to aperson who performed numerical calculations, frequently with the aidof a mechanical calculating device or analog computer. In 1801, JosephMarie Jacquard made an improvement to the presented loom designs thatused a series of punched paper cards as a program to weave involvedpatterns. The resulting Jacquard loom is not considered a truecomputer but it was an essential step in the growth of modern digitalcomputers.

Charles Babbage was the first to conceptualize and design a completelyprogrammable computer as early as 1820, In 1801, Joseph Marie Jacquardmade an improvement to the presented loom designs that used a seriesof punched paper cards as a program to weave involved patterns. Theresulting Jacquard loom is not considered a true computer but it wasan essential step in the growth of modern digital computers.

but due to a combination of the restrictions of the technology of thetime, limited finance, and an incapability to resist tinkering withhis design, the device was never really constructed in his lifetime.By the end of the 19th century a number of technologies that wouldlater prove helpful in computing had appeared, out such as the punchcard and the vacuum tube, and large-scale automated data giving usingpunch cards was performed by tabulating equipment designed by HermannHollerith.During the first half of the 20th century, many technicalcomputing wants were met by increasingly difficult special-purposeanalog computers, which used a direct mechanical or electrical modelof the problem as a base for subtraction (they became ever more rareafter the development of the programmable digital computer). Sequenceof gradually more powerful and stretchy computing devices wereconstruct in the 1930s and 1940s.