As far as data representation is concerned, computers can be divided into three categories: digital computers, analog computers and hybrid computers.
Digital computers are divided into mechanical computers and electromechanical computers, current electronic computers, optical computers, quantum computers, biological computers, neural computers and so on.
According to its scale or system function, electronic computers can be divided into giant, large, medium, small, microcomputer and single-chip microcomputer.
Extended data:
The development history of digital electronic computer;
Computer is a kind of modern intelligent electronic equipment that can automatically and quickly perform a large number of numerical calculations and various information processing according to pre-stored programs. The scientific name of computer is electronic digital computer, which is developed from the early electronic calculator. Generally speaking, "the first electronic digital computer recognized in the world" is considered by most people as "ENIAC" which came out in 1946, and is mainly used to calculate ballistics. It is manufactured by Moore Institute of Electrical Engineering, University of Pennsylvania, USA, but it is huge, covering an area of 170 square meters, weighing about 30 tons, and consumes nearly 140 kilowatts of electricity. Obviously, such computers are expensive and inconvenient to use. This statement is widely used in basic computer textbooks. In fact, according to the ruling of the US Supreme Court 1973, the earliest electronic digital computers should be john atanasoff, an associate professor in the Department of Physics of He Hua University, and Clifford Berry, his graduate assistant (19 18- 1963). The reason for this misunderstanding is that a man named Moakley in the "ENIAC" research group copied john atanasoff's research results at 194 1 and applied for a patent at 1946. For various reasons, this error was not reversed until 1973. (See "john atanasoff" in Baidu Encyclopedia for details. I hope everyone will remember ABC and john atanasoff, and I hope this mistake can be corrected in future textbooks). Later, in order to commend and commemorate john atanasoff's great contribution in the computer field, former US President George W. Bush awarded john atanasoff the "National Science and Technology Award", the highest American science and technology award.
1956, the transistor electronic computer was born, which is the second generation electronic computer. Only a few larger cabinets can be installed, and the operation speed is greatly improved. The third generation of integrated circuit computers appeared in 1959. 1946, the calculator invented by john von neumann was as big as three warehouses, and it was gradually developed.
This is the latest stage of computer development since 1970s. By 1976, "Cray" made of LSI and VLSI made the computer enter the fourth generation. With the invention of VLSI, electronic computers are constantly upgrading to miniaturization, miniaturization, low power consumption, intelligence and systematization.
In the 1990s, computers developed in the direction of "intelligence", creating computers similar to human brains, which can do thinking, learning, memory and network communication.
In the 265,438+0th century, computers have become more notebook-oriented, miniaturized and specialized, with an operation speed of over 65,438,000 billion times per second. It is not only easy to operate and cheap, but also can replace part of people's mental work and even expand people's intelligence in some aspects. Therefore, today's microcomputers are vividly called computers.
The first personal computer in the world was introduced by IBM in 1980. IBM introduced a personal computer based on Intel x86 hardware architecture and Microsoft MS-DOS operating system, and formulated the PC/AT specification. After that, the development of the microprocessor introduced by Intel and the operating system introduced by Microsoft is almost equivalent to the development history of personal computers. Wintel architecture completely replaced IBM's dominant position in the field of personal computers.
References:
Baidu encyclopedia-digital electronic computer