Computers
are used for a wide variety of purposes.
Parts
of a computer
Data
processing is
commercial and financial work. This includes such things as billing, shipping
and receiving, inventory control, and similar business related functions, as
well as the “electronic office”.
Scientific
processing is using
a computer to support science. This can be as simple as gathering and analyzing
raw data and as complex as modelling natural phenomenon (weather and climate
models, thermodynamics, nuclear engineering, etc.).
Multimedia includes content creation
(composing music, performing music, recording music, editing film and video,
special effects, animation, illustration, laying out print materials, etc.) and
multimedia playback (games, DVDs, instructional materials, etc.).
Parts
of a computer
The
classic crude oversimplication of a computer is that it contains three
elements: processor unit, memory, and I/O (input/output). The borders between
those three terms are highly ambigious, non-contiguous, and erratically
shifting.
A
slightly less crude oversimplification divides a computer into five elements:
arithmetic and logic subsystem, control subsystem, main storage, input
subsystem, and output subsystem.