History of computers
If you are familiar with the movie ” The imitation game” then you are familiar with the name “Alan Turing”. He was an English mathematician and computer scientist. He had high influence in the development of theoretical computer science, with the Turing machine he provided a formalization of the concepts of algorithm and computation, which can be considered a model of a general purpose computer. And as a matter of fact, Turing is considered these days to be the father of artificial intelligence and theoretical computer science. But the history of computers goes way back before Turing. As computers were only considered as calculating devices just like the abacus.
A mechanical engineer from England called Charles Babbage invented the first mechanical computer in the 19th century.
Types of computers
There are two classifications of computers either based on their size or based on their uses.
Classification based on their uses
- Analog computer
- Hybrid computer
Classification based on their size
- Smartphone
- Microcomputer
- Workstation
- Mainframe computer
- Supercomputer
What can a
computer do?
A computer is able to multitasking, this means that it is able to perform a certain number of processes on a specific period of time. That also means that a task can interrupt already running tasks before they finish, instead of waiting for them to end. In simple terms, multitasking means that the user can listen to a song while checking or surfing the internet and use the calculator for example at the same time.
But every computer has bugs, because it uses programs and programs are basically codes and codes can have bugs.
What are bugs?
Bugs in the computer language mean errors. They mean that there is a flaw or a mistake in the program or in the entire system which results in an unexpected or unwanted result. The program that contains a lot of bugs
It is said to be defective.
How can we fix bugs?
The process of fixing bugs is called debugging and it used formal techniques to detect the bugs and fix them. Because if we can not fix bugs they can interfere with the functionality of the computer. It even may lead the system or the computer to freeze or crash. That is why bugs are not good in a program.