In computer science, a digital electronic computer is a computer machine which is both an electronic computer and a digital computer. Examples of digital electronic computers include the IBM PC, the Apple Macintosh, and modern smartphones. When computers that were both digital and electronic appeared, they displaced almost all other kinds of computers, but computation has historically been performed in various non-digital and non-electronic ways: the Lehmer sieve is an example of a digital non-electronic computer, while analog computers are examples of non-digital computers which can be electronic (with analog electronics), and mechanical computers are examples of non-electronic computers (which may be digital or not).
An example of a computer which is both non-digital and non-electronic is the ancient Antikythera mechanism found in Greece. All kinds of computers, whether they are digital or analog, and electronic or non-electronic, can be Turing complete if they have sufficient memory. A digital electronic computer is not necessarily a programmable computer, a stored program computer, or a general purpose computer, since in essence a digital electronic computer can be built for one specific application and be non-reprogrammable.
A digital electronic computer is not necessarily a transistorized computer: before the advent of the transistor, computers used vacuum tubes. The transistor enabled electronic computers to become much more powerful, and recent and future developments in digital electronics may enable humanity to build even more powerful electronic computers. One such possible development is the memristor.
People living in the beginning of the 21st century use digital electronic computers for storingdata, such as photos, music, documents, for performing complex mathematical computations, or for communication, commonly over a worldwide computer network called the internet which connects many of the world's computers. All these activities made possible by digital electronic computers could, in essence, be performed with non-digital or non-electronic computers if they were sufficiently powerful, but it was only the combination of electronics technology with digital computation in binary that enabled humanity to reach the computation power necessary for today's computing. Advances in quantum computing, DNA computing, optical computing or other technologies could lead to the development of more powerful computers in the future.
An analog computer or analogue computer is a type of computer that uses the continuous variation aspect of physical phenomena such as electrical, mechanical, or hydraulic quantities to model the problem being solved. In contrast, digital computers represent varying quantities symbolically and by discrete values of both time and amplitude.
Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and development of both hardware and software. Computing has scientific, engineering, mathematical, technological and social aspects. Major computing disciplines include computer engineering, computer science, cybersecurity, data science, information systems, information technology and software engineering.
A central processing unit (CPU)—also called a central processor or main processor—is the most important processor in a given computer. Its electronic circuitry executes instructions of a computer program, such as arithmetic, logic, controlling, and input/output (I/O) operations. This role contrasts with that of external components, such as main memory and I/O circuitry, and specialized coprocessors such as graphics processing units (GPUs).
A computation is any type of arithmetic or non-arithmetic calculation that is well-defined. Common examples of computations are mathematical equations and computer algorithms.
Electronics is a scientific and engineering discipline that studies and applies the principles of physics to design, create, and operate devices that manipulate electrons and other electrically charged particles. Electronics is a subfield of electrical engineering, but it differs from it in that it focuses on using active devices such as transistors, diodes, and integrated circuits to control and amplify the flow of electric current and to convert it from one form to another, such as from alternating current (AC) to direct current (DC) or from analog signals to digital signals. Electronics also encompasses the fields of microelectronics, nanoelectronics, optoelectronics, and quantum electronics, which deal with the fabrication and application of electronic devices at microscopic, nanoscopic, optical, and quantum scales.
The history of computing hardware covers the developments from early simple devices to aid calculation to modern day computers.
Digital electronics is a field of electronics involving the study of digital signals and the engineering of devices that use or produce them. This is in contrast to analog electronics which work primarily with analog signals. Despite the name, digital electronics designs includes important analog design considerations.
The history of computing hardware starting at 1960 is marked by the conversion from vacuum tube to solid-state devices such as transistors and then integrated circuit (IC) chips. Around 1953 to 1959, discrete transistors started being considered sufficiently reliable and economical that they made further vacuum tube computers uncompetitive. Metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) large-scale integration (LSI) technology subsequently led to the development of semiconductor memory in the mid-to-late 1960s and then the microprocessor in the early 1970s. This led to primary computer memory moving away from magnetic-core memory devices to solid-state static and dynamic semiconductor memory, which greatly reduced the cost, size, and power consumption of computers. These advances led to the miniaturized personal computer (PC) in the 1970s, starting with home computers and desktop computers, followed by laptops and then mobile computers over the next several decades.
Theoretical computer science (TCS) is a subset of general computer science and mathematics that focuses on mathematical aspects of computer science such as the theory of computation, formal language theory, the lambda calculus and type theory.
The history of computing is longer than the history of computing hardware and modern computing technology and includes the history of methods intended for pen and paper or for chalk and slate, with or without the aid of tables.
Neuromorphic computing is an approach to computing that is inspired by the structure and function of the human brain. A neuromorphic computer/chip is any device that uses physical artificial neurons to do computations. In recent times, the term neuromorphic has been used to describe analog, digital, mixed-mode analog/digital VLSI, and software systems that implement models of neural systems. The implementation of neuromorphic computing on the hardware level can be realized by oxide-based memristors, spintronic memories, threshold switches, transistors, among others. Training software-based neuromorphic systems of spiking neural networks can be achieved using error backpropagation, e.g., using Python based frameworks such as snnTorch, or using canonical learning rules from the biological learning literature, e.g., using BindsNet.
Optical computing or photonic computing uses light waves produced by lasers or incoherent sources for data processing, data storage or data communication for computing. For decades, photons have shown promise to enable a higher bandwidth than the electrons used in conventional computers.
Rahul Sarpeshkar is the Thomas E. Kurtz Professor and a professor of engineering, professor of physics, professor of microbiology & immunology, and professor of molecular and systems biology at Dartmouth. Sarpeshkar, whose interdisciplinary work is in bioengineering, electrical engineering, quantum physics, and biophysics, is the inaugural chair of the William H. Neukom cluster of computational science, which focuses on analog, quantum, and biological computation. The clusters, designed by faculty from across the institution to address major global challenges, are part of President Philip Hanlon's vision for strengthening academic excellence at Dartmouth. Prior to Dartmouth, Sarpeshkar was a tenured professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and led the Analog Circuits and Biological Systems Group. He is now also a visiting scientist at MIT's Research Laboratory of Electronics.
Unconventional computing is computing by any of a wide range of new or unusual methods. It is also known as alternative computing.
A computer is a machine that can be programmed to carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as programs. These programs enable computers to perform a wide range of tasks. The term computer system may refer to a nominally complete computer that includes the hardware, operating system, software, and peripheral equipment needed and used for full operation; or to a group of computers that are linked and function together, such as a computer network or computer cluster.
An electronic circuit is composed of individual electronic components, such as resistors, transistors, capacitors, inductors and diodes, connected by conductive wires or traces through which electric current can flow. It is a type of electrical circuit. For a circuit to be referred to as electronic, rather than electrical, generally at least one active component must be present. The combination of components and wires allows various simple and complex operations to be performed: signals can be amplified, computations can be performed, and data can be moved from one place to another.
Biological computers use biologically derived molecules — such as DNA and/or proteins — to perform digital or real computations.
This list compares various amounts of computing power in instructions per second organized by order of magnitude in FLOPS.
The Royal Radar Establishment Automatic Computer (RREAC) was an early solid-state computer in 1962. It was made with transistors; many of Britain's previous experimental computers used the thermionic valve, also known as a vacuum tube.
Computers can be classified, or typed, in many ways. Some common classifications of computers are given below.
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