History and Anatomy of a Computer

What is a computer? Many people will think of the monitor sitting on their desk, or in their office, with the mouse and keyboard. But the actual computer is the machine that makes everything on that screen come to life. Computers are in just about anything that moves and functions. The human brain is even considered a sophisticated computer. The computers that I am going to be talking mainly about, though, are the personal computers (PCs). Those are the computers with a monitor hooked up, using wires, to a large computer box that holds the operating system, and a mouse and keyboard, and maybe even speakers or an internet box. These are the computers that you will most likely use in an office.

The word “computer” is technically defined as an object that can accept some input and produce some output. The most common use of the word “computer”, is an electronic device containing a micro compressor. A micro compressor is a small electronic device and it carries

calculations in the blink of the eye. Micro compressors are used in everything from cars, refrigerators and televisions.

PCs can come in varieties of colors and sizes and are made from a raw material called silicon. There is a large monitor that displays images, a mouse which you use using your hands to control a cursor on the screen monitor, a keyboard with the alphabet and numbers and symbols which has millions of different uses. You may also have speakers hooked up and they play noise from some content from the computer. I’d say that the majority of people these days have also set up some sort of an internet connection.

Computer machines were first invented to receive instructions from punched cards. It was called the Analytical Engine and was conceived by Charles...

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...e used for almost everything. You can add more screens for heavily graphical work, intensive multitasking, or even serious gaming. Over the years, smaller and smaller machines contain the computing power that would have filled a large room twenty years ago. Now just about every American home has a computer.

Computers and all other sorts of technologies have been used in medicine to help find cures for minor illnesses, like the flu, or major diseases, like cancer. Although we don’t know everything there is to know about the world, we can always do more research and experiments using computers. We can do research on things at home if we aren’t sure about something, or we want to know further information on something new that we learned. We can also connect with friends via the internet. There are literally endless ways that we can use computers and the internet.