Definition of computer

software, instructions that tell a computer what to do. Software i.e., the physical components of a computer system. A set of instructions that directs a computer’s hardware to perform a task is called a program, or software program. The two main types of software are network software, which coordinates communication between the computers linked in a network. Software is typically stored on an external long-term memory device, such as a hard drive or magnetic diskette. When the program is in use, the computer reads it from the storage device and temporarily places the instructions in random access memory (RAM). The process of storing and then performing the instructions is called “running,” or “executing,” a program. By contrast, software programs and procedures that are permanently stored in a firmware, or “hard software.” This article was most recently revised and updated by

The complete computer made up of the CPU, memory and related electronics (main cabinet), all the peripheral devices connected to it and its operating system. Computer systems fall into two categories: clients and servers. Clients are the user's laptop and desktop computers, tablets and smartphones, while servers share their data and applications with multiple users. Servers range from entry-level rack mounts to mainframes. See A computer system is sized for the number of users it handles simultaneously, the type of work performed (office, engineering, etc.) and the volume of data that must be stored. Platform Every application is written to run under a specific CPU/operating system environment. The largest client platforms are x86/Windows, x86/Mac, ARM/Android and ARM/iOS. The largest server platforms are x86/Linux and x86/Windows. See Number of CPU Cores The more CPU cores, the more simultaneous processing. Modern desktop computer CPUs have two, four or eight processing cores, and servers can have from two to 64 or more. In addition, multiple machines can be tied together to work as one (see Clock Speed The gigahertz (GHz) rate of the CPU determines internal processing speed. See Disk and Memory The disk capacity determines the amount of information immediately available to all users. A computer's memory capacity determines how many applications can run efficiently at the same time. Fault Tolerance The use of redundant processors, peripherals and power supplies provide co...

Recent Examples on the Web Besides unveiling the new chip, Anderson also showed several comparison benchmarks that put the top-end 16-core Ryzen Threadripper 1950X running about 55 percent to 15 percent faster than Intel’s current top-end Core i9-7900X CPU. — Gordon Mah Ung, PCWorld, 30 July 2017 The chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices, Intel's only real competitor for the CPUs that run personal computers, ran into a wall over the past decade as it got distracted trying to crack the mobile market. — Aaron Pressman, Fortune, 28 June 2017 The Aero 15 gives you a 2.8GHz seventh generation Core i7 CPU, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 graphics card. — Christopher Null, WIRED, 10 June 2017 The PC benchmarking site of Passmark Software reports tests involving AMD CPUs accounted for almost 26% of all x86-compatible submissions in the latest quarter, up from under 21% in the prior quarter and under 18% in the same quarter a year ago. — Aaron Pressman, Fortune, 6 July 2017 On that note, Intel has introduced a new feature that ensures M.2 storage is connected directly to the CPU. — Mark Walton, Ars Technica, 4 July 2017 The mannequin was dressed in a deep purple dress with accessories made from computer parts, including a CPU necklace and a USB cable. — Domenica Bongiovanni, Indianapolis Star, 1 July 2017 The CPU lives in a sturdy base, from which a single post rises to support the screen. — Wired Staff, WIRED, 30 June 2017 The company’s already made a splash th...

A computer is a general-purpose machine that processes data according to a set of instructions temporarily or permanently stored internally. The computer and all the equipment attached to it are "hardware." The instructions that tell the computer what to do are "software." See The software that controls the computer is called an "operating system," and the software that inputs, processes and outputs data for the user is called a "program," "application" or "app." See Storage/RAM Interaction The interplay between storage and RAM (memory) is how computers, tablets and smartphones work. The program is first written into RAM, and the computer executes its instructions to input, process and output the data. In appliances and sensors, a single program is stored permanently (see RAM and Storage RAM is a temporary workspace, while storage is permanent and comprises any hard drive, solid state drive (SSD), optical disc or USB drive in the same computer or in another computer in the network. After processing the data internally, the computer can send a copy of the results from RAM back to storage, to a printer or to another computer. The more RAM, the more programs and data the computer can work with quickly, and entry-level computers generally have at least 4GB (four gigabytes) of RAM. The more storage, the more data can be saved. Entry-level computers typically have at least 512GB of disk or 256GB of SSD storage. Addressable RAM Storage is read and written in large blocks called "...

Recent Examples on the Web Delaney has hopes to enter the fields of computer science or computer engineering. — Katia Parks, Baltimore Sun, 13 June 2023 Many of these state unemployment agencies used antiquated computer systems or had too few staff to stop bogus claims from being paid. — Aaron Kessler, oregonlive, 12 June 2023 Ransomware attacks — in which criminal hackers remotely cripple an organization’s computers and demand an extortion payment — have plagued U.S. health care since 2016, said Allan Liska, a ransomware analyst at the cybersecurity firm Recorded Future. — Kevin Collier, NBC News, 12 June 2023 Cruel Summer season 2, which takes place in the summer of 1999, the winter of 1999, and the summer of 2000, follows computer genius Megan Landry (Sadie Stanley) and bubbly Isabella LaRue (Lexi Underwood). — Leah Campano, Seventeen, 12 June 2023 The gelato shop garnered social media buzz due to its ground rules that include a dress code and no use of cell phones or laptop computers, which Colafrancesco said was to encourage people to talk instead of looking at their phones. — Greg Garrison | , al, 11 June 2023 Theartificial intelligence super computers form their own society and attempt to restore the planet, but then a synthetic science creates a cloned human being and humans begin repopulating the Earth. — Pam Kragen, San Diego Union-Tribune, 11 June 2023 An array of equipment, including a sound booth, mixing board, video studio, 3D printers and state-of-the-art co...

for pictures and videos lets break it down into an individual pixel, the entire color spectrum consists of 3 primary colors, red green and blue, so a certain amount of red green and blue can make any color visible to the naked eye, pixels use numbers to figure out how much of each primary color it needs to display to get the right color, anywhere from 0-255, for example 255 red, 0 green and 0 blue will give you the color red, 255R 255G 255B will give you black, assuming you know how binary numbers work, its simply taking binary numbers(bits) and turning them into numbers for each primary color and then the pixel does what each of those primary color numbers say, apply some very complex wiring and you have a a computer screen like the ones you are using to read this, for sound its a bit more complicated but its the same concept, every single sound has a unique frequency, these frequencies can be graphed using numbers, so heres where the same concept applies, the computer can get those numbers using binary as well, and then it sends an electrical current with the same frequency that the binary code(bits) requested, and the speaker turns that into sound All pictures are made up of pixels. If you can see them that means that you're looking at a picture which as fewer pixels. The more pixels a picture has the smaller the pixels get (or seem?). So high quality pictures have a lot more pixels over a given area than low quality images and consequently seem smoother, because they'r...

A computer is a general-purpose machine that processes data according to a set of instructions temporarily or permanently stored internally. The computer and all the equipment attached to it are "hardware." The instructions that tell the computer what to do are "software." See The software that controls the computer is called an "operating system," and the software that inputs, processes and outputs data for the user is called a "program," "application" or "app." See Storage/RAM Interaction The interplay between storage and RAM (memory) is how computers, tablets and smartphones work. The program is first written into RAM, and the computer executes its instructions to input, process and output the data. In appliances and sensors, a single program is stored permanently (see RAM and Storage RAM is a temporary workspace, while storage is permanent and comprises any hard drive, solid state drive (SSD), optical disc or USB drive in the same computer or in another computer in the network. After processing the data internally, the computer can send a copy of the results from RAM back to storage, to a printer or to another computer. The more RAM, the more programs and data the computer can work with quickly, and entry-level computers generally have at least 4GB (four gigabytes) of RAM. The more storage, the more data can be saved. Entry-level computers typically have at least 512GB of disk or 256GB of SSD storage. Addressable RAM Storage is read and written in large blocks called "...

Recent Examples on the Web Delaney has hopes to enter the fields of computer science or computer engineering. — Katia Parks, Baltimore Sun, 13 June 2023 Many of these state unemployment agencies used antiquated computer systems or had too few staff to stop bogus claims from being paid. — Aaron Kessler, oregonlive, 12 June 2023 Ransomware attacks — in which criminal hackers remotely cripple an organization’s computers and demand an extortion payment — have plagued U.S. health care since 2016, said Allan Liska, a ransomware analyst at the cybersecurity firm Recorded Future. — Kevin Collier, NBC News, 12 June 2023 Cruel Summer season 2, which takes place in the summer of 1999, the winter of 1999, and the summer of 2000, follows computer genius Megan Landry (Sadie Stanley) and bubbly Isabella LaRue (Lexi Underwood). — Leah Campano, Seventeen, 12 June 2023 The gelato shop garnered social media buzz due to its ground rules that include a dress code and no use of cell phones or laptop computers, which Colafrancesco said was to encourage people to talk instead of looking at their phones. — Greg Garrison | , al, 11 June 2023 Theartificial intelligence super computers form their own society and attempt to restore the planet, but then a synthetic science creates a cloned human being and humans begin repopulating the Earth. — Pam Kragen, San Diego Union-Tribune, 11 June 2023 An array of equipment, including a sound booth, mixing board, video studio, 3D printers and state-of-the-art co...

The complete computer made up of the CPU, memory and related electronics (main cabinet), all the peripheral devices connected to it and its operating system. Computer systems fall into two categories: clients and servers. Clients are the user's laptop and desktop computers, tablets and smartphones, while servers share their data and applications with multiple users. Servers range from entry-level rack mounts to mainframes. See A computer system is sized for the number of users it handles simultaneously, the type of work performed (office, engineering, etc.) and the volume of data that must be stored. Platform Every application is written to run under a specific CPU/operating system environment. The largest client platforms are x86/Windows, x86/Mac, ARM/Android and ARM/iOS. The largest server platforms are x86/Linux and x86/Windows. See Number of CPU Cores The more CPU cores, the more simultaneous processing. Modern desktop computer CPUs have two, four or eight processing cores, and servers can have from two to 64 or more. In addition, multiple machines can be tied together to work as one (see Clock Speed The gigahertz (GHz) rate of the CPU determines internal processing speed. See Disk and Memory The disk capacity determines the amount of information immediately available to all users. A computer's memory capacity determines how many applications can run efficiently at the same time. Fault Tolerance The use of redundant processors, peripherals and power supplies provide co...

software, instructions that tell a computer what to do. Software i.e., the physical components of a computer system. A set of instructions that directs a computer’s hardware to perform a task is called a program, or software program. The two main types of software are network software, which coordinates communication between the computers linked in a network. Software is typically stored on an external long-term memory device, such as a hard drive or magnetic diskette. When the program is in use, the computer reads it from the storage device and temporarily places the instructions in random access memory (RAM). The process of storing and then performing the instructions is called “running,” or “executing,” a program. By contrast, software programs and procedures that are permanently stored in a firmware, or “hard software.” This article was most recently revised and updated by