today computers are all around us from
desktop computers to smartphones they
are changing the way that we live our
lives but have you ever asked yourself
what exactly is a computer a computer is
an electronic device that manipulates
information or data the computer sees
data as ones and zeros but it knows how
to combine them into more complex things
such as a photograph a movie a website a
game and much more computers use a
combination of hardware and software
hardware is any physical part of the
computer which includes all of the
internal components and also the
external parts like the monitor and the
keyboard software is any set of
instructions that tells the hardware
what to do
such as a web browser media player or
word processor now when most people say
computer they're talking about a
personal computer this can be a desktop
computer or a laptop computer which has
basically the same capabilities but in a
more portable package personal computers
come in two main styles PC and Mac PCs
are the most common type there are many
different companies that make them and
they usually come with the Microsoft
Windows operating system Mac's
or Macintosh computers are all made by
one company Apple and they come with the
Mac OS 10 operating system computers
come in many other shapes and sizes
mobile phones tablets game consoles and
even TVs have built-in computers
although they may not do everything a
desktop or a laptop can
there's another type of computer that
plays an important role in our lives
servers a server serves information to
other computers on a network in fact
every time you use the Internet web
servers deliver the webpages that you
want to see to your computer servers are
also used in many offices to store and
share files as you can see there are
many different types of computers out
there and they affect our lives in a
variety of ways