Characteristics of computer

Characteristics of computer :

The increasing popularity of computers has proved that it is a very powerful and useful tool. The power and usefulness of this popular tool are mainly due to its following characteristics:

1. Automatic:

A machine is said to be automatic, if it works by itself without human intervention. Computers are automatic machines because once started on a job, they carry on, until the job is finished, normally without any human assistance. However, computers being machines cannot start themselves. They cannot go out and find their own problems and solutions. They have to be instructed. That is, a computer works from a program of coded instructions, which specify exactly how a particular job is to be done. Some of the other characteristics of computers, such as speed and accuracy, are due to the fact that they are automatic, and work on a problem without any human intervention.

2. Speed:

A computer is a very fast device. It can perform in a few seconds, the amount of work that a human being can do in an entire year – if he worked day and night and did nothing else. To put it in a different manner, a computer does in one minute what would take a man his entire lifetime.,

*( xi + 0I Our units of speed are the microseconds (10), the nanoseconds ^ 6 ( 6^ – 01) and even the While talking about the speed of a computer, we do not talk in terms of seconds or even milliseconds picoseconds (10-12). A powerful computer is capable of performing several billion (10) simple arithmetic operations per second.
operations per second.

3. Accuracy:

In addition to being very fast, computers are very accurate. The accuracy of a computer is consistently high, and the degree of accuracy of a particular computer depends upon its design. However, for a particular computer, every calculation is performed with the same accuracy.

Errors can occur in a computer. However, these are mainly due to human rather than technological weaknesses. For example, errors may occur due to imprecise thinking by the programmer (a person who writes instructions for a computer to solve a particular problem) or incorrect input data. Computer errors caused due to incorrect input data or unreliable programs are often referred to as garbage-in-garbage-out (GIGO).

4. Diligence:

Unlike human beings, a computer is free from monotony, tiredness and lack of concentration. It can continuously work for hours, without creating any error and without grumbling. Hence, computers score over human beings in doing routine type of jobs, which require great accuracy: If ten million calculations have to be performed, a computer will perform the ten millionth calculation with exactly the same accuracy and speed as the first one.

5. Versatility

Versatility is one of the most wonderful things about the computer. One moment, it is preparing the results of an examination, the next moment, it is busy preparing electricity bills, and in between, it may be helping an office secretary to trace an important letter in seconds. 7 All that is required to change its talent is to slip in a new program (a sequence of instructions for the computer) into it. Briefly, a computer is capable of performing almost any task, if the task can be reduced to a series of logical steps.

6. Power of Remembering:

As a human being acquires new knowledge, the brain subconsciously selects what it feels to be important and worth retaining in its memory, and relegates unimportant details to the back of the mind or just forgets them, This is not the case with computers. A computer can store and recall any amount of information because of its secondary storage (a type of detachable memory) capability. Every piece of information can be retained as long as desired by the user, and can be recalled, as and when required. Even after several years, the information recalled would be as accurate as on the day when it was fed to the computer. A computer forgets or looses certain information only when it is asked to do so. Hence, it is entirely up to the user, to make a computer retain or forget a particular information.

7. No I. Q.

A computer is not a magical device. It possesses no intelligence of its own. Its I. Q. is zero, at least untill today. It has to be told what to do and in what sequence. Hence, only the user can determine what tasks a computer will perform. A computer cannot take its own decision in this regard.

8. No Feelings:

Computers are devoid of emotions. They have no feelings and no instincts because they are machines. Although men have succeeded in building a memory for the computer, but no computer possesses the equivalent of a human heart and soul. Based on our feelings, taste, knowledge, and experience, we often make certain judgements in our day-to-day life. However, computers cannot make such judgements on their own. Their judgement is based on the instructions given to them in the form of programs that are written by us