Electronics
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Computers
Computers are very useful electronic machines. They can be used for accessing the internet, flying an aircraft, designing a car, storing data, playing games and many other functions. A computer stores data such as numbers, words, sounds and pictures, and processes it under direction of the program. A computer is made up of hardware, its physical parts, and software, made up of the data and programs it stores and uses.
Types of computer
Desktop computers used at home, school and work are called personal computers (PCs). Other types include mainframes, used by large companies for data processing, and supercomputers, for doing complex scientific calculations extremely quickly. Many computers do just one specific job. Examples of these dedicated computers are games machines, in-car navigation computers (satnavs), and the computers that help to fly airliners.
Personal computers became popular with the development of the first computer games in the 1980s. Along with desktop computers, PCs come as laptops, tablets and hand-held devices such as smartphones, which can also be used for email, browsing the internet, taking digital photos and video, using apps and playing music and games.
Hardware
Computer hardware includes the central processing unit (the CPU), the memory, the screen or monitor, the CD or DVD drive, keyboard, mouse, trackpad, printer and scanner. The main part of a personal computer is the CPU, which can be thought of as the computer’s “brain”. It is contained on a single, large integrated circuit called a microprocessor, or, simply, a processor. The CPU receives instructions from the program and carries them out.
Programs and data are stored as electrical signals in the computer’s memory, on its hard disc drive and on memory cards and memory sticks. Rows of metal tracks, called buses, connect the processor and memory. The data bus carries the data; the address bus tells the memory where the data should come from or go to.
The large rectangular board inside the computer with the integrated circuitry that connects the other parts of the computer, including the CPU, memory and disc drives, is called the motherboard.
Also connected via the motherboard in PCs, smartphones and games consoles is the graphics processing unit (GPU). This is a memory-intensive circuit designed to make it quicker to create or view 3D graphics—essential for game-playing and in other applications that use complex graphics.
Software
There are two main types of computer software: operating system software and application software. System software does the computer’s “housekeeping” jobs, such as controlling a printer, or writing data to disc drives. Application software makes the computer do specific jobs.
Most personal computers have application software such as a word processor (for preparing letters and reports), a photo browser, a music player, a web browser (for accessing the internet) and email software. Games and educational programs are also applications.
Office computer software
Office computers may also have software for doing calculations (called spreadsheets), for processing orders, for accounts, for planning projects and for making presentations. Book and magazine designers use publishing software to design and edit pages before they are printed. Engineers and designers use computer-aided design (CAD) software to help them design new products, which they can view on-screen before making the real thing. Details of the parts can be sent to computers that control the manufacturing machines that make the parts. In most offices, computers are linked together into networks so that they can share programs and data, which are stored on a computer called a server.
Mouse
A mouse is used to move the pointer, or cursor, on the screen. Most modern mice use a small light-emitting diode (LED) which produces a red light that reflects from the surface beneath it as the mouse is moved around. Thousands of images are produced every second which are used to track the mouse's movements.
A wireless mouse works by a Bluetooth short-wave radio link to the CPU so has no trailing wire "tail" (which made the device look a little like a real mouse, hence its name).
A trackpad is a pointing device featuring a surface that can detect the position and movement of a user's fingers and translate them to a relative position on the screen or monitor. A trackpad is a common feature of a laptop, and is often used as an alternative to a mouse for moving the cursor.
Scanner and printer
Scanners enable pictures to be stored in a computer. A flat-bed scanner works by recording the light reflected from the original picture. The light is picked up by a sensor. It divides up the image into thousands of pixels that are loaded into the computer.
An inkjet printer creates a digital image by propelling droplets of ink through a tiny nozzle on to paper or other surfaces.
Computer networks
A computer network is a telecommunications network that allows computers to exchange information, or data, between each other. The connections, or network links, are made via cables (usually fibre optics) or wireless (radio waves). The best-known computer network is the internet.
Wireless local area networks (LANs) use high-frequency radio waves, called Wi-Fi, to enable communication between all the computing devices, including personal computers, tablets, smartphones and game consoles, within a certain area. In a wireless LAN, sometimes referred to as a star network, each user connects to a central access point, called a switch or hub.
The internet is like a network of computer networks. It consists of millions of private, public, academic, business, and government networks all linked together. To make it possible for data to be exchanged over this colossal network, a set of "rules" are needed. These rules—technology called Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet Protocol (IP)—specify how data is formatted, transmitted and received.
Cloud computing
Instead of storing data and programs on your computer's hard disc drive or CDs, you can use the internet to store them. The internet allows the user to access websites that act as special data centres. This is called cloud storage. On these sites you can store emails, photos, graphics files, videos and other media. Social networking sites such as Facebook are an example of cloud storage.
Consultant: Chris Oxlade
Timeline
1832
English inventor Charles Babbage patents the first mechanical computer.
1940s
Electronic computers are developed. They are huge machines that use thousands of thermionic valves. The first successful electronic computer is the ENIAC, completed in 1946.
1950s
Computers become far smaller with the invention of integrated circuits.
1952
Noughts and crosses, the first computer game with a graphics display, is made at Cambridge University in the UK.
1971
The first microprocessor, the Intel 4004, is produced. A microprocessor is the central processing unit (CPU), the main part of a computer, contained on a single chip.
1977
The first home computers appear on the market.
Late 1970s–1980s
Computer games start to become popular
1981
The first IBM personal computer, which uses Microsoft’s new MS-DOS operating system, is released.
1983
The first laptop computer goes on sale.
1990
British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee develops the technology that allows the creation of the world wide web.
1993
The Pentium microprocessor allows graphics and music to be used on personal computers.
1999
Users connect to the internet without wires, using Wi-fi technology.
2000
Sony releases the PlayStation 2 game console.
2007
The iPhone is launched, a smartphone that incorporates a number of computer functions to the smartphone.
2010
The Apple iPad, the first tablet computer, goes on sale.