What are Computers?

Over the past 20 years it’s been tempting at times to think of the personal computer as more than a “thing” that was invented. While there may be some evidence to support this belief, the truth is computers are machines made of plastic, metal and a few other compounds that only work as well as the information that is put into them and that comes out of them.

Computers are only able to work with the data that people put into them through instructions called software. We might also want to keep in mind that the current electrical wizardry we know is only the most recent and fastest example of computing machines. Human beings worked with mechanical computers for centuries. Only in the last 50 years have men and women worked with electronic computers that perform in a few seconds the functions that used to take minutes or hours.

Computers are not only faster and electronic in nature they are also smaller, hundreds of times smaller. The first computers occupied entire rooms – a maze of wires, tubes and even some mechanical parts. In the 21st century, computers are as small as a cell phone and pocket calculators.

The key to stating what a computer is today lies in understanding the integrated circuit. Inventors and manufacturers have reduced the roomful of material to small lines on a composite-material board yet these miniature wonders are programmable and capable of calculation. “Programmable” means that the designers and users of computers can make the units perform certain tasks intentionally, putting instructions in the computer to make it work in a certain way.

With the correct construction and input of a “program” computers can calculate at levels far too complex for human beings. Mechanical calculating machines using punch cards were tried as early as 1801. But the refinement of the punch card and printing devices didn’t come about until much later. In the 20th century such developments as the vacuum tube and other individual items would shift the world of computing into high gear.

Computers today are fine-tuned versions of the Turing machine, created by Alan Turing in 1936. At the heart of all modern computation: arithmetic operations based on a binary system.
What are these magnificent computing machines good for? They are excellent at storing information and giving it back to us on demand. New technology has added animation, video, complex sound and more to the list of things that computers do well. In fact, the word “computer” is probably no longer adequate to describe what these products do for us. They have become much more: communications devices, entertainment centers etc. We use a simple word “computer” to indicate something that is replacing newspapers, magazines, tape players and CD players. Computers also serve as casinos and bingo parlors in our homes. They provide us with farms, fish tanks and studios for designing clothes, all based on an original idea about adding and figuring faster than we could on our own.