A computer is a machine that manipulates data according to a list of instructions.
The first devices that resemble modern computers date to the mid-20th century (around 1940 - 1945), although the computer concept and various machines similar to computers existed earlier. Early electronic computers were the size of a large room, consuming as much power as several hundred modern personal computers.[1] Modern computers are based on tiny integrated circuits and are millions to billions of times more capable while occupying a fraction of the space.[2] Today, simple computers may be made small enough to fit into a wristwatch and be powered from a watch battery. Personal computers, in various forms, are icons of the Information Age and are what most people think of as "a computer"; however, the most common form of computer in use today is the embedded computer. Embedded computers are small, simple devices that are used to control other devices — for example, they may be found in machines ranging from fighter aircraft to industrial robots, digital cameras, and children's toys.
The ability to store and execute lists of instructions called programs makes computers extremely versatile and distinguishes them from calculators. The Church–Turing thesis is a mathematical statement of this versatility: any computer with a certain minimum capability is, in principle, capable of performing the same tasks that any other computer can perform. Therefore, computers with capability and complexity ranging from that of a personal digital assistant to a supercomputer are all able to perform the same computational tasks given enough time and storage capacity.
The era in which computing power doubles every two years is drawing to a close, according to the man behind Moore's Law Jonathan Richards For decades it has been the benchmark by which advancements in computing are measured. Now Moore's Law - the maxim which states that computers double in speed roughly every two years - has come under threat, from none other than the man who coined it. Gordon Moore, the retired co-founder of Intel, wrote an influential paper in 1965 called 'Cramming more components onto integrated circuits', in which he theorised that the number of transistors on a computer chip would double at a constant rate. Silicon Valley has kept up with his widely accepted maxim for more than 40 years, to the point where a new generation of chips, which Intel will begin to produce next year, will have transistors so tiny that four million of them could fit on the head of a pin. Related Links * IBM unveils nanotechnology chip advance * Intel chips away at AMD * Intel apologises for 'racist' ad In an interview yesterday, however, Mr Moore said by about 2020, his law would come up against a rather intractable stumbling block: the laws of physics.
The first devices that resemble modern computers date to the mid-20th century (around 1940 - 1945), although the computer concept and various machines similar to computers existed earlier. Early electronic computers were the size of a large room, consuming as much power as several hundred modern personal computers.[1] Modern computers are based on tiny integrated circuits and are millions to billions of times more capable while occupying a fraction of the space.[2] Today, simple computers may be made small enough to fit into a wristwatch and be powered from a watch battery. Personal computers, in various forms, are icons of the Information Age and are what most people think of as "a computer"; however, the most common form of computer in use today is the embedded computer. Embedded computers are small, simple devices that are used to control other devices — for example, they may be found in machines ranging from fighter aircraft to industrial robots, digital cameras, and children's toys.
The ability to store and execute lists of instructions called programs makes computers extremely versatile and distinguishes them from calculators. The Church–Turing thesis is a mathematical statement of this versatility: any computer with a certain minimum capability is, in principle, capable of performing the same tasks that any other computer can perform. Therefore, computers with capability and complexity ranging from that of a personal digital assistant to a supercomputer are all able to perform the same computational tasks given enough time and storage capacity.
The era in which computing power doubles every two years is drawing to a close, according to the man behind Moore's Law Jonathan Richards For decades it has been the benchmark by which advancements in computing are measured. Now Moore's Law - the maxim which states that computers double in speed roughly every two years - has come under threat, from none other than the man who coined it. Gordon Moore, the retired co-founder of Intel, wrote an influential paper in 1965 called 'Cramming more components onto integrated circuits', in which he theorised that the number of transistors on a computer chip would double at a constant rate. Silicon Valley has kept up with his widely accepted maxim for more than 40 years, to the point where a new generation of chips, which Intel will begin to produce next year, will have transistors so tiny that four million of them could fit on the head of a pin. Related Links * IBM unveils nanotechnology chip advance * Intel chips away at AMD * Intel apologises for 'racist' ad In an interview yesterday, however, Mr Moore said by about 2020, his law would come up against a rather intractable stumbling block: the laws of physics.
"Another decade, a decade and a half, I think we'll hit something fairly fundamental," Mr Moore said at Intel's twice-annual technology conference. Then Moore's Law will be no more. Mr Moore was speaking as Intel gave its first demonstration of a new family of processors, to be introduced in November, which contain circuitry 45 nanometres - billionths of a metre - wide. The 'Penryn' processors, 15 of which will be introduced this year, with another 20 to follow in the first quarter of 2008, will be so advanced that a single chip will contain as many as 820 million transistors. Computer experts said today that a failure to live up to Moore's Law would not limit the ultimate speed at which computers could run. Instead, the technology used to manufacture chips would shift. The current method of Silicon-based manufacturing is known as "bulk CMOS", which is essentially a 'top-down' approach, where the maker starts with a piece of Silicon and 'etches out' the parts that aren't needed. "The technology which will replace this is a bottom-up approach, where chips will be assembled using individual atoms or molecules, a type of nanotechnology," Jim Tully, chief of research for semi-conductors at Gartner, the analyst, said. "It's not standardised yet - people are still experimenting - but you might refer to this new breed of chips as 'molecular devices'." Anthony Finkelstein, head of computer science at University College London, said, however, that a more pressing problem in the meantime was to write programs which took full advantage of existing technologies. "It's all very well having multicore chips in desktop machines, but if the software does not take advantage of them, you gain no benefit." "We are hitting the software barrier before we hit the physical barrier," he said. Mr Moore, who is 78, pioneered the design of the integrated circuit, and went on to co-found Intel in 1968, where he served as chief executive between 1975 and 1987.
History of computing hardware
The history of computer hardware encompasses the hardware, its architecture, and its impact on software. The elements of computing hardware have undergone significant improvement over their history. This improvement has triggered worldwide use of the technology, performance has improved and the price has declined.
[1] Computers are accessible to ever-increasing sectors of the world's population.
[2] Computing hardware has become a platform for uses other than computation, such as automation, communication, control, entertainment, and education. Each field in turn has imposed its own requirements on the hardware, which has evolved in response to those requirements.
[3]The von Neumann architecture unifies our current computing hardware implementations.
[4] Since digital computers rely on digital storage, and tend to be limited by the size and speed of memory, the history of computer data storage is tied to the development of computers. The major elements of computing hardware implement abstractions: input,
[5] output,
[6] memory,
[7] and processor. A processor is composed of control
[8] and data path.
History of computing hardware
The history of computer hardware encompasses the hardware, its architecture, and its impact on software. The elements of computing hardware have undergone significant improvement over their history. This improvement has triggered worldwide use of the technology, performance has improved and the price has declined.
[1] Computers are accessible to ever-increasing sectors of the world's population.
[2] Computing hardware has become a platform for uses other than computation, such as automation, communication, control, entertainment, and education. Each field in turn has imposed its own requirements on the hardware, which has evolved in response to those requirements.
[3]The von Neumann architecture unifies our current computing hardware implementations.
[4] Since digital computers rely on digital storage, and tend to be limited by the size and speed of memory, the history of computer data storage is tied to the development of computers. The major elements of computing hardware implement abstractions: input,
[5] output,
[6] memory,
[7] and processor. A processor is composed of control
[8] and data path.
[9] In the von Neumann architecture, control of the data path is stored in memory. This allowed control to become an automatic process; the data path could be under software control, perhaps in response to events. Beginning with mechanical data paths such as the abacus and astrolabe, the hardware first started using analogs for a computation, including water and even air as the analog quantities: analog computers have used lengths, pressures, voltages, and currents to represent the results of calculations.
[10] Eventually the voltages or currents were standardized, and then digitized. Digital computing elements have ranged from mechanical gears, to electromechanical relays, to vacuum tubes, to transistors, and to integrated circuits, all of which are currently implementing the von Neumann architecture.
