Introduction

A computer is an electronic and digital device that receives information as input, processes it, then returns a meaningful output.

Let’s explore this definition a bit. The computer is, first of all, a device made of electrical parts, which means that it’s an assembly of electric wires, integrated circuits, transistors, resistors, capacitors, etc. and requires electricity to function.

The second part says that it takes information as an input. This tells as that any computer wouldn’t do anything until it’s demanded to do so. The action of demanding something to a computer is done by the entering into it things such as text, sound, images, electrical signals, and so many other elements. All these elements are passed to the computer as signals and represent the information.

The third part mentions how the computer has to crunch the entered information to be able to return an intended outcome. It’s normal because it has to decipher the input to understand what is asked of it, then decide of how it would be done, and finally where and how to present the feedback for the end-user. This set of decisions the computer make is called processing or computation.

The fourth part of the definition addresses the importance of what we get from the computer when we use it. There must be some usefulness in what the computer produces and returns to its user. This is what of the reasons that gave rise to a whole new industry of application software. And this is why, in general, computer systems require monitors or screens. That part is the most used output device that allows the computer to provide us with visual feedback.

Computers usage vary from one person to another, from one setup to another, from one goal to another, and so on. Computers are such versatile devices because there are programmable. This allows us to write programs that can carry out given computational tasks. This type of computers are qualified of stored programs computers.

They also vary in their structures and natures. For example, we have personal computers or microcomputer (laptops, smart phones, smart watches, desktop and all-in-one computers …), Mainframes, Supercomputers, Servers, etc.