Section 2.1 What Is a Computer?
When people hear the word computer, they often think of a desktop or a laptop. Not surprisingly, searching for “computer” on Google Images displays rows and rows of these types of machines. However, in a more general sense, a computer can be any type of device that stores and processes data.
Dictionary.com defines a computer as “a programmable electronic device designed to accept data, perform prescribed mathematical and logical operations at high speed, and display the results of these operations. Mainframes, desktop and laptop computers, tablets, and smartphones are some of the different types of computers.”
Each type of computer has its own unique design, but internally they all share the same type of hardware. The two most important hardware components are processors (or CPUs) that perform simple calculations and memory (or RAM) that temporarily stores information. Figure 2.1.1 shows what these components look like.
Users generally see and interact with touchscreens, keyboards, and monitors, but it’s the processors and memory that perform the actual computation. Nowadays it’s fairly standard, even for a smartphone, to have at least eight processors and four gigabytes (four billion cells) of memory.
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