The document provides an overview of computers, classifying them based on purpose, signal type, and capacity. It identifies major types such as special-purpose and general-purpose computers, as well as analog, digital, hybrid, micro, mini, mainframe, and supercomputers. Each category includes descriptions of their functions, applications, and examples.

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3.  What is Computer?
 Computer is an electronic machine that takes input from
user, process that input and give the output. Now a days
computer is used every sphere in our life like in study, in
business, in agriculture, in hospital and so on. There is
many types of computers based on purpose, signal etc. In
this presentation, we are going to know about all types of
computer which is used in our work.
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4.  First of all we can classify computers
mainly in 3 types.
1.Based on Purposes
2.Based on Signals
3.Based on Capacity
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5.  Now we show all types of computers in
a diagram.
Types of computers
Based on
purposes
Special
purpose
computers
General
purpose
computers
Based on
signals
Analog
computers
Digital
computers
Hybrid
Computers
Based on
capacity
Micro
computers
Mainframe
computers
Super
computers
Mini
computers
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6. 1.Classification based on purposes
 There are 2 types of computers based on
purposes. They are:
1. Special purpose computers:
Special-Purpose Computer are designed to be task specific
and most of the times their job is to solve one particular
problem. They are also known as dedicated computers,
because they are dedicated to perform a single task over and
over again.
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7. These computers are usually used to control traffic lights,
to control the collection of tolls on highways, navigational
system in an aircraft, weather forecasting, satellite launch /
tracking, in automobiles, weapons, games and so on.
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Special purpose Computer

8. 2. General purpose computers:
Most computers in use today are
General-Purpose computers. Those
computers built for a great variety of
processing jobs. Simply by using a
general purpose computer and different
software, various tasks can be
accomplished, including writing and
editing (word processing), manipulating
facts in a data base, tracking
manufacturing inventory, making
scientific calculations, or even
controlling organization’s security
system, electricity consumption, building
temperature and so many tasks.
General purpose Computer
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9. A general purpose computer is able to perform a wide
variety of operations because it can store and execute
different programs in its internal storage. Unfortunately,
having this ability is often achieved at the expense of speed
and efficiency. Examples of some popular general-purpose
computers the BESM-6 computer, the Atlas and System 4
computers (Great Britain), and the IBM 370 family of
computers (USA).
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10. 2.Classification based on signals
 There are three types of computers based on
signals. They are:
1.Analog Computers
An analog computer is a form of computer that uses
the continuously changeable aspects of physical
phenomena such as electrical, mechanical, or hydraulic
quantities and represent its as digital way. Its performs
arithmetical operations by using some variable physical
quantity, such as mechanical movement or voltage, to
represent numbers. In contrast, digital computers
represent varying quantities symbolically, as their
numerical values change.
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11. Analog computers were widely used in
scientific and industrial applications
where digital computers of that time
lacked sufficient performance. Analog
computers can have a very wide range of
complexity. Naval gunfire control
computers was the most complicated
among analog computers. The advantage
of digital computing and its success made
analog computers largely obsolete in this
time, though they remain in use in some
specific applications, like the flight
computer in aircraft.
Analog Computer
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12. 2. Digital Computers
The computer we used in our home
is a example of digital computers. The
digital computer stores and process
data in digital form. Each data is
usually stored in terms of 0s and 1s in
these types of computers. The digital
computers are also capable to process
the analog data. Digital computers are
generally faster and more reliable than
analog computer. The digital computers
have Arithmetic-logic unit(ALU), control
unit, memory unit, I/O units. The ALU
of digital computers performs various
arithmetic and logic operation such as
addition, subtraction, AND, OR etc.
Digital computer
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13. 3.Hybrid Computers
Hybrid computers are computers that exhibit features of
analog computers and digital computers. One of the main
technical problems to be overcome in hybrid computers is
minimizing digital-computer noise in analog computing
elements and grounding systems. The feature of hybrid
computers makes it very fast, reliable and efficient. In these
computers, data is generally processed in the form of
electrical signals and it stored by digital components. The
computer used in hospital to measure heartbeat of patient is
a example of hybrid computer.
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14. Hybrid computers show digital and analog data in the same
time. They are also used in scientific application, various
engineering fields, in business process etc.
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Hybrid Computer

15. 3.Classification based on capacity
 There are 4 kinds of computers based
on capacity. They are:
1.Microcomputers
Microcomputers are mainly known as
personal computers. These types of
computers are microprocessor based.
The microprocessor called the brain of a
microcomputer; it is a silicon chip which
contains necessary circuit for
performing arithmetic and logic
operations.
Microcomputer
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16. By adding input, output capability and memory to the microprocessor the
system of a microcomputer is formed. Personal digital assistant are known as
PDAs also a microcomputer. They are very small portable computer. They also
known as palmtop computer.
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Palmtop
Past day microcomputers had limited power and input/output system. But
now a days its has wider capabilities and support huge types of input/output
devices. Microcomputers are both used for general and special purpose. Such
as in toys, airplanes, automobiles and so on.

17. There is also some components of microcomputers. Such as
workstation, servers, clients, terminals. They are discussed
below:
 Workstations:
A workstation is a special computer
designed for technical or scientific
applications. Intended primarily to be
used by one person at a time, they are
commonly connected to a local area
network and run multi-user operating
systems. Workstations offered higher
performance than mainstream personal
computers, especially with respect to CPU
and graphics, memory capacity, and
multitasking capability. Initially it was
designed for engineers and designers who
need extremely powerful processing.
Workstation
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18.  Servers:
Server is a computer program or
a device that provides functionality
for other programs or devices,
called "clients". Servers can provide
various function such as sharing data
or resources among multiple clients,
or performing computation for a
client. A single server can serve
multiple clients, and a single client
can use multiple servers. A client
process may run on the same device
or may connect over a network to a
server on a different device.
Server
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19.  Clients:
If we have to use servers
we need to run a program
that is called clients. A client
is a piece of computer
hardware or software that
accesses a service made
available by a server. The
server is often (but not
always) on another computer
system, in which case the
client accesses the service by
way of a network.
Clients
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20.  Terminals:
A computer terminal is an
electronic or electromechanical
hardware device that is used for
entering data into, and displaying
data from, a computer or a
computing system. It is look like PC
but it has some limitation like it has
only a screen and a keyboard. The
function of a terminal is confined to
display and input of data; a device
with significant local programmable
data processing capability may be
called a smart terminal. A terminal
that depends on the host computer
for its processing power is called a
dumb terminal.
Terminal
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21. 2.Minicomputers
Minicomputers is small in size
than the other computers of those
times. Minicomputers are used by
small businesses and firms.
Minicomputers are also called as
“Midrange Computers”. These are
small machines and can be
accommodated on a disk with not
as processing and data storage
capabilities as supercomputers and
Mainframes but it is powerful than
microcomputers.
Minicomputer
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22. Minicomputers were characterized by limited hardware and
software facilities and small physical size. Their low cost
made them suitable for a wide variety of applications such
as industrial control, where a small, dedicated computer
which is permanently assigned to one application, is needed.
In recent years, improvements in device technology have
resulted in minicomputers which are comparable in
performance to large second generation computers and
greatly exceed the performance of first generation
computers. These computers are not designed for a single
user. Its designed for Individual departments of a large
company or organizations for special purpose.
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23. 3.Mainframe Computers
A mainframe computers is very
large computer and it can handle
major application. It can contains
large databases that can accessed
with a simple terminal. Although
Mainframes are not as powerful as
supercomputers, but certainly they
are quite expensive nonetheless,
and many large firms and
government organizations uses
Mainframes to run their business
operations.
Mainframe Computer
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24. The Mainframe computers can be accommodated in large
air-conditioned rooms because of its size. Mainframes are
designed to handle very high volume of input and output. It
is common in mainframe to deal with massive databases and
files. Compared to a typical PC, mainframes commonly have
hundreds to thousands of times as much data storage online,
and can access it reasonably fast. For this reason banks,
educational institutions, insurance companies use mainframe
computers to store data about their customers, students
insurance policy holders.
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25. 4.Super Computers
The most powerful computers in
terms of performance and data
processing are the Supercomputers.
These are specialized and task
specific computers used by large
organizations. These computers are
used for research and exploration
purposes, like NASA uses
supercomputers for launching space
shuttles, controlling them and for
space exploration purpose. The
supercomputers are very expensive
and very large in size. Super Computer
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26. It can be accommodated in large air-conditioned rooms. Super computer are
used in many sector. Such as weather forecasting, fluid mechanics, nuclear
energy research, petroleum exploration etc. Super computers are the fastest
computers because they employ thousands of processor, gigabytes of RAM
and secondary storage. In these types of computer, a large and complex
problem is divided into smaller problems and solved concurrently by the
microprocessor of the computer. 26
NASA Super Computer

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