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The first documented computer architecture was in the correspondence between Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace, describing the analytical engine.While building the computer Z1 in 1936, Konrad Zuse described in two patent applications for his future projects that machine instructions could be stored in the same storage used for data, i.e., the stored-program concept.
A human computer, with microscope and calculator, 1952. It was not until the mid-20th century that the word acquired its modern definition; according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first known use of the word computer was in a different sense, in a 1613 book called The Yong Mans Gleanings by the English writer Richard Brathwait: "I haue [] read the truest computer of Times, and the best ...
The storage of computer programs is key to the operation of modern computers and is the connection between computer hardware and software. [7] Even prior to this, in the mid-19th century mathematician George Boole invented Boolean algebra —a system of logic where each proposition is either true or false.
Third-generation computers were offered well into the 1990s; for example the IBM ES9000 9X2 announced April 1994 [30] used 5,960 ECL chips to make a 10-way processor. [31] Other third-generation computers offered in the 1990s included the DEC VAX 9000 (1989), built from ECL gate arrays and custom chips, [32] and the Cray T90 (1995).
A programmer, computer programmer, or coder is a person who writes computer software. The term computer programmer can refer to a specialist in one area of computer programming or to a generalist who writes code for many kinds of software. One who practices or professes a formal approach to programming may also be known as a programmer analyst.
These computers are capable of handling and processing very large amounts of data quickly. Mainframe computers are used in large institutions such as government, banks, and large corporations. They are measured in MIPS (million instructions per second) and can respond to hundreds of millions of users at a time [citation needed].
The configuration of a computer is typically recorded in a configuration file. In modern computer systems, this is created and updated automatically as physical components are added or removed. Applications may assume that the configuration file is an accurate representation of the physical configuration and act accordingly.
Many computer fonts consist of glyphs that are indexed by the numerical code of the corresponding character. With the advent and widespread acceptance of Unicode [5] and bit-agnostic coded character sets, [clarification needed] a character is increasingly being seen as a unit of information, independent of any particular visual manifestation.