Hardware
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The term hardware covers all of those parts of a computer that are tangible objects. Circuits, displays, power supplies, cables, keyboards, printers and mice are all hardware.
History of computing hardware | First Generation (Mechanical/Electromechanical) | Calculators | Antikythera mechanism, Difference Engine, Norden bombsight |
| Programmable Devices | Jacquard loom, Analytical Engine, Harvard Mark I, Z3 |
| Second Generation (Vacuum Tubes) | Calculators | Atanasoff–Berry Computer, IBM 604, UNIVAC 60, UNIVAC 120 |
| Programmable Devices | Colossus, ENIAC, Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine, EDSAC, Manchester Mark I, CSIRAC, EDVAC, UNIVAC I, IBM 701, IBM 702, IBM 650, Z22 |
| Third Generation (Discrete transistors and SSI, MSI, LSI Integrated circuits) | Mainframes | IBM 7090, IBM 7080, System/360, BUNCH |
| Minicomputer | PDP-8, PDP-11, System/32, System/36 |
| Fourth Generation (VLSI integrated circuits) | Minicomputer | VAX, IBM System i |
| 4-bit microcomputer | Intel 4004, Intel 4040 |
| 8-bit microcomputer | Intel 8008, Intel 8080, Motorola 6800, Motorola 6809, MOS Technology 6502, Zilog Z80 |
| 16-bit microcomputer | Intel 8088, Zilog Z8000, WDC 65816/65802 |
| 32-bit microcomputer | Intel 80386, Pentium, Motorola 68000, ARM architecture |
| 64-bit microcomputer[20] | Alpha, MIPS, PA-RISC, PowerPC, SPARC, x86-64 |
| Embedded computer | Intel 8048, Intel 8051 |
| Personal computer | Desktop computer, Home computer, Laptop computer, Personal digital assistant (PDA), Portable computer, Tablet computer, Wearable computer |
| Theoretical/experimental | Quantum computer, Chemical computer, DNA computing, Optical computer, Spintronics based computer |
Other Hardware Topics | Peripheral device (Input/output) | Input | Mouse, Keyboard, Joystick, Image scanner |
| Output | Monitor, Printer |
| Both | Floppy disk drive, Hard disk, Optical disc drive, Teleprinter |
| Computer busses | Short range | RS-232, SCSI, PCI, USB |
| Long range (Computer networking) | Ethernet, ATM, FDDI |
Software
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Software refers to parts of the computer which do not have a material form, such as programs, data, protocols, etc. When software is stored in hardware that cannot easily be modified (such as BIOS ROM in an IBM PC compatible), it is sometimes called "firmware" to indicate that it falls into an uncertain area somewhere between hardware and software.
Computer software | Operating system | Unix/BSD | UNIX System V, AIX, HP-UX, Solaris (SunOS), IRIX, List of BSD operating systems |
| GNU/Linux | List of Linux distributions, Comparison of Linux distributions |
| Microsoft Windows | Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows CE |
| DOS | 86-DOS (QDOS), PC-DOS, MS-DOS, FreeDOS |
| Mac OS | Mac OS classic, Mac OS X |
| Embedded and real-time | List of embedded operating systems |
| Experimental | Amoeba, Oberon/Bluebottle, Plan 9 from Bell Labs |
| Library | Multimedia | DirectX, OpenGL, OpenAL |
| Programming library | C standard library, Standard template library |
| Data | Protocol | TCP/IP, Kermit, FTP, HTTP, SMTP |
| File format | HTML, XML, JPEG, MPEG, PNG |
| User interface | Graphical user interface (WIMP) | Microsoft Windows, GNOME, KDE, QNX Photon, CDE, GEM |
| Text user interface | Command line interface, shells |
| Application | Office suite | Word processing, Desktop publishing, Presentation program, Database management system, Scheduling & Time management, Spreadsheet, Accounting software |
| Internet Access | Browser, E-mail client, Web server, Mail transfer agent, Instant messaging |
| Design and manufacturing | Computer-aided design, Computer-aided manufacturing, Plant management, Robotic manufacturing, Supply chain management |
| Graphics | Raster graphics editor, Vector graphics editor, 3D modeler, Animation editor, 3D computer graphics, Video editing, Image processing |
| Audio | Digital audio editor, Audio playback, Mixing, Audio synthesis, Computer music |
| Software Engineering | Compiler, Assembler, Interpreter, Debugger, Text Editor, Integrated development environment, Performance analysis, Revision control, Software configuration management |
| Educational | Edutainment, Educational game, Serious game, Flight simulator |
| Games | Strategy, Arcade, Puzzle, Simulation, First-person shooter, Platform, Massively multiplayer, Interactive fiction |
| Misc | Artificial intelligence, Antivirus software, Malware scanner, Installer/Package management systems, File manager |
Programming languages
Programming languages provide various ways of specifying programs for computers to run. Unlike natural languages, programming languages are designed to permit no ambiguity and to be concise. They are purely written languages and are often difficult to read aloud. They are generally either translated into machine language by a compiler or an assembler before being run, or translated directly at run time by an interpreter. Sometimes programs are executed by a hybrid method of the two techniques. There are thousands of different programming languages—some intended to be general purpose, others useful only for highly specialized applications.
Programming Languages | Lists of programming languages | Timeline of programming languages, Categorical list of programming languages, Generational list of programming languages, Alphabetical list of programming languages, Non-English-based programming languages |
| Commonly used Assembly languages | ARM, MIPS, x86 |
| Commonly used High level languages | BASIC, C, C++, C#, COBOL, Fortran, Java, Lisp, Pascal |
| Commonly used Scripting languages | Bourne script, JavaScript, Python, Ruby, PHP, Perl |
Professions and organizations
As the use of computers has spread throughout society, there are an increasing number of careers involving computers. Following the theme of hardware, software and firmware, the brains of people who work in the industry are sometimes known irreverently as wetware or "meatware".
Computer-related professions | Hardware-related | Electrical engineering, Electronics engineering, Computer engineering, Telecommunications engineering, Optical engineering, Nanoscale engineering |
| Software-related | Computer science, Human-computer interaction, Information technology, Software engineering, Scientific computing, Web design, Desktop publishing |
The need for computers to work well together and to be able to exchange information has spawned the need for many standards organizations, clubs and societies of both a formal and informal nature.
Organizations | Standards groups | ANSI, IEC, IEEE, IETF, ISO, W3C |
| Professional Societies | ACM, ACM Special Interest Groups, IET, IFIP |
| Free/Open source software groups | Free Software Foundation, Mozilla Foundation, Apache Software Foundation |
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