Everybody has a reason for starting a blog. My reason is simply because of my love for computers, and my ability to share my thoughts with someone out there on the internet who can relate. My blog is not for everybody, it is for people like myself who can relate, and maybe for those who are interested in understanding why people do what they do, i.e. the researchers.
I love everything about computers. I love to use computers to achieve everything I do, ranging from my diet, my training, my schedule, my budget, my connections, my job, my social life, and ... the list goes on.
I have seen many definitions of a computer, but the only accepted definition that suits this topic is; a computer is a programmable electronic device or machine that accepts or receives input through peripheral devices or through any acceptable form of input, processes, stores and outputs the data in a useful format at high speeds according to programmed instructions that are resident in the machine. In simple language, less input, and great output.
A computer has the ability to receive a set of instructions in the form of a program. There is a system program (Software), and there is an application program (Software). The computer executes this set of instructions called a program with the option of storing them or deleting them from its stored data. The application software runs on the existing system software to give the desired result.
Computers have made our life very easy and it continues to get better. You may ask why and how has this super machine made our life better? Before I answer why and how let's take a look at the ancient computer.
Mechanical examples of computers have existed throughout much of recorded human history. The first electronic computers were developed in the mid-20th century (1940–1945). Originally, they were the size of a large room, consuming as much power as several hundred modern personal computers, but now, we have different kinds of mini and microcomputers that are super fast.
Types of Computers
Computers can be classified with reference to size, speed, reliability, and many variables. Some common types or kinds of computers are Microcomputers (Personal computers), Minicomputers (midrange computers), Mainframe Computers, Supercomputers, Servers, Workstations, Information appliances, and Embedded computers.
Microcomputers (Personal computers)
Although the term "Microcomputer is obsolete, it is still in the record that it was once used to describe a computer. Microcomputer is a computer with "a microprocessor" as its central processing unit. They are physically small compared to mainframe and minicomputers. Many microcomputers (when equipped with a keyboard and screen for input and output) are also personal computers. The abbreviation "micro" was common during the 1970s and 1980s, but has now fallen out of common usage.
Minicomputers
A minicomputer (colloquially, mini) is a class of multi-user computers that lies in the middle range of the computing spectrum, in between the largest multi-user systems (mainframe computers) and the smallest single-user systems (microcomputers or personal computers). The class at one time formed a distinct group with its own hardware and operating systems, but the contemporary term for this class of system is midrange computer, such as the higher-end SPARC, POWER, and Itanium -based systems from Sun Microsystems, IBM, and Hewlett-Packard.
Mainframe Computers
Mainframe computers are powerful computers used mainly by large organizations for critical applications, typically bulk data processing such as census, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning, and financial transaction processing. The term originally referred to the large cabinets that housed the central processing unit and main memory of early computers.
Later the term was used to distinguish high-end commercial machines from less powerful units.
Most large-scale computer system architectures were firmly established in the 1960s and most large computers were based on architecture established during that era up until the advent of Web servers in the 1990s. (The first Web server running anywhere outside Switzerland ran on an IBM mainframe at Stanford University as early as 1991. See History of the World Wide Web for details.)
For more information on how these computers came to be, visit Ben Segal. Short History of Internet Protocols at CERN, April 1995
I'll stop here for now. We'll continue from where we stopped tomorrow.
Your friend
Lapo