What is a Computer?
With the advent of the information age, the computer became man’s chief tool for both business and scientific problem solving.
The personal computer has brought capabilities to everyday people which were once reserved for big businesses and agencies and others with capital budgets.
What is this panacea for information management anyway?
A computer is a “machine.”
A machine may be described as:
- an electromechanical device
- any means to an end
A computer is most definitely an “electromechanical device” in that it plugs into a wall outlet and has rapidly moving parts.
The government of Chicago is called “The Machine” because it’s “any means to the end” of big city management.
A computer is “A Machine” because it’s “any means to the end” of information management, or data processing.
All computers are composed of three parts:
- hardware
- software
- media
Hardware is sometimes called “equipment”. It’s the part of the computer which occupies space and has weight. It comprises most of the physical components of a computer.
The three main pieces of hardware a typical user will encounter are the:
- “System Unit” or main case. This contains a chip called the CPU which is the “computer” itself.
- “Monitor” or screen that you look at to view the operation of software and data you create with it.
- “Keyboard” (and mouse) which are “pointing devices” called such because they control the “cursor” which forms the characters, graphics, and indicates screen position.
Software is more abstract. Software exists as an “image” or “pattern of characters” representing either “instructions” which tell the machine what to do or “data” which is information created by the user with those instructions.
Software will assume various physical states based on where it happens to exist at a moment in time. If software is in use, the pattern of characters exists as an electronic image which traverses the extent of a group of chips called the computer’s “memory”.
If software is stored it exists as a magnetic image on a disk or tape of that variety – or a series of holes burned into an optical disk by a laser. Finally there are hybrid technology implementations like “magneto-optical” and the list of software states will continue to evolve with our various means of using and storing information.
Media get’s it’s own classification due to it’s importance to a computer system as a whole. Like hardware it is equipment. The term “Media” refers to “that which stores software” and goes beyond disks and tapes to chips – any means of immediate or tertiary storage device may be referred to as ‘media.’
For example, your floppy disks are media. A tape in a backup unit is also media. There are integrated circuit chips on various cards which also qualify as media. Indeed, the “Media Access Control” (MAC) address burned into all network interface cards at the manufacturer for purposes of unique identification derive their name for this reason.