Many of the routine activities today at home and in business are done by computers. The computer has proved a friend and servant of science, technology and industry. Most offices, shops, factories and industries use computers. The Internet is a storehouse of information. The computer is a boon to all. Telecommunication and satellite imageries are computer based. Computers have made the world a global village today.
The computer is one of the most brilliant gifts of science. It is an electronic device for storing and analyzing information fed into it, for calculating, or for controlling machinery automatically. Charles Babbage developed this device first in 1812 followed by George Boole in 1854, Howard and Aitten in 1937, Dr. John Nouchly and J. P. Eckert in 1946. These computers were named the first generation equipment. Today, with the 'Artificial Intelligence' technology, we are using fifth generation computers. Each new generation of computers has been smaller, lighter, speedier and more powerful than the earlier ones. Now note-book sized computers like laptop are fairly common. Computers have been dominating technology since 1970s, and have now entered almost all walks of life.
Writing a program is essential for running a computer. This job is done by a software engineer. A computer program is a complete list of instructions which the computer accepts in order to solve a problem. There are many different languages that can be used to programme a computer. BASIC, COBOL, FOR TRAN, C, C++, JAVA and Visual Basic are some of them.
Speed, accuracy, reliability and integrity are some of the characteristics of a computer. It can execute over a million