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What is a computer?

A computer is a biological and/or mechanical device that computes or that performs computations. One of the earliest computers was in fact the human brain; the ultimate in biological computers (as far as we know). But for a very long period of time, a computer was simply a job description; one who computes.

A thermometer is also a computer. An analog computer. A mechanical device that serves a specific computational purpose. In this case, to accurately measure temperatures. Clockwork timepieces and slide-rules are also examples of analog computers. The list is endless. However, when we think of computers today we often think of digital computers. So let's begin there.

What is a digital computer?

A digital computer is a mechanical device not unlike an analog computer (they are both machines that compute), but they differ in one key area: they have a dynamic memory. That is, they can store data as incremental values, or digits, hence they are called digital computers. Moreover, unlike an analog computer, they can be programmed to perform many different computations, including computations that have yet to be conceived.

The parts of a computer

The basic components of a digital computer can be broadly broken down into two main categories: hardware and software. Hardware is the physical component while software is what brings the hardware to life and gives it purpose. You cannot have one without the other.

The hardware can be broken down into several key components: input devices, processing devices and output devices. The input and output devices are fairly self-explanatory, but usually consist of a keyboard and screen at the very least. With modern touch-screen technologies, however, the distinction is becoming less apparent but, suffice to say, they are both an input and an output device.

The processing devices consist of a central processing unit (CPU), random access memory (RAM) and mass data storage devices (usually hard-drives). The CPU does all the real work, however all three work together. The hard-drives store all the software (programs and data) that is to be used or created by the processor. Programs and data that are currently required by the processor are loaded into RAM, and the processer executes the programs one instruction at a time, referring to the data stored in RAM. Depending upon the program, additional data can be loaded from the disk while new data can be written back to disk, as and when required.

RAM is an extremely volatile form of memory in that it requires electricity to maintain its state. However, it is extremely fast and can be modified at an extremely rapid rate. Mass storage devices like hard-drives are non-volatile however they are many times slower. They do fail from time to time, but they do not require a power source to maintain their state.

Although hard-drives can fail, multiple hard-drives can be combined such that data is duplicated automatically. Thus if one drive fails, another can be used until the faulty drive is replaced. This is known as a redundant array of inexpensive (or independent) drives, or RAID. There are various configurations depending on whether you want automatic backups or enhanced performance.

The processor, RAM, hard-drives and all other peripheral devices (screen, keyboard, printers, etc) are all connected together via a motherboard. The motherboard also has its own small non-volatile memory chips known as ROM (read-only memory). This contains a small program (the BIOS, or basic input/output system) that performs a series of quick tests to ensure the primary hardware (e.g., the CPU and memory) are all working, before passing control to the boot loader which is stored stored on disk.

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