CLASSIFICATION OF COMPUTER

1. A general-purpose computer is one that, given the appropriate

application and required time, should be able to perform most common
computing tasks.

Personal computers, including desktops, notebooks, smartphones and tablets,

are all examples of general-purpose computers. The term is used to
differentiate general-purpose computers from other types, in particular the
specialized embedded computers used in intelligent systems.

ENIAC, designed and built in the 1940s, was the first general-purpose
computer. ENIAC weighed 30 tons and covered an area of about 1,800
square feet. In contrast, a current smartphone weighs a few ounces and is
small enough to slip into a pocket.

General purpose computers differ from special purpose computers in

that they are designed to follow instructions. Special purpose
computers are created and assigned specific tasks.

The best way to gain an understanding of general purpose computers

is to look at the ENIAC computer which was the first ever general
purpose computer. It was built in 1946 for the US army to complete a
variety of tasks. As it could do so, it was nicknamed a 'Giant Brain'. It
was able to be reprogrammed to perform a range of computing
problems.

General purpose computers are designed so that they do not require

any specific human instruction in order to complete problems and
tasks. They are programmed in their design to do so themselves.
These computers are common in day to day life and are often used to
perform tasks including data processing and numerical problems.
Personal computers that are used at home or at work are general
purpose computers.

Special purpose computers are those designed to do a specific job.

These again are used throughout daily life and examples include:
  Home appliances
 Toys and games
 Cash machines
 Vehicle computers

These computers are not designed to be versatile in their tasks

and require human input to do them. Their purpose is in built
when the computer is being designed and cannot be
reprogrammed. They can be designed to perform for example
only numerical or data processing tasks among others.

2. Special-purpose computers refer to computers that are built to

perform specific tasks, such as automatic teller machines or washing
machines. ... Other examples of special purpose computers include traffic-light
control systems, weather-forecasting simulators, oil-exploration systems and
traffic-controlcomputers.

- Robots used in a manufacturing industry for production only.

- Mobile phones used for communication only.
- Calculators that carry out calculations only.
- Computers used in Digital watches.
- Computers used in Petrol pumps.
- Computers used in Washing machines.
- An Automatic pilot – a computer dedicated to the task of operating an aircraft.
- A Word processor – a special-purpose computer used in the production of office
documents, letters, etc.

3. An analog computer or analogue computer is a type of computerthat uses the

continuously changeable aspects of physical phenomena such as electrical,
mechanical, or hydraulic quantities to model the problem being solved.

An analog computer is a computer which is used to process analog data. Analog

computers store data in a continuous form of physical quantities and perform
calculations with the help of measures. It is quite different from the digital computer,
which makes use of symbolic numbers to represent results. Analog computers are
excellent for situations which require data to be measured directly without converting
into numerals or codes. Analog computers, although available and used in industrial
 and scientific applications like control systems and aircraft, have been largely replaced
by digital computers due to the wide range of complexities involved.
These are examples of analog computers that have been constructed or
practically used:
 Boeing B-29 Superfortress Central Fire Control System.
 Deltar.
 Kerrison Predictor.
 Leonardo Torres y Quevedo's Analogue Calculating Machines based on "fusee sans
fin"
 Librascope, aircraft weight and balance computer.
 Mechanical computer.

4. Digital computer is the computer which is electrical as well as digital. In today’s

world, Apple Macintosh is the best example of digital computer. In other words, the
machine which operates on data, symbols etc. that are expressed in machine
language means in 0 or 1 form.

The definition of a digital computer is the most commonly used type

of computerand is used to process information with quantities using digits,
usually using the binary number system. An example of a digital computer is a
MacBook.

Digital computer are those in which we provide input very easily and getting output in a
fraction of seconds. All devices you use like PC, Laptop, Desktop, Mobile, Smartwatch, etc.

Now, difference in analog and digital!!

best example of digital and analog is watch(wrist watch) there are 2 types of watches

1. which contains 3 hands called send hand, minute hand and hour hand and having crown
to adjust them - is analog clock means it not shows digits.

2. the which shows you time in digital format e.g. 10:30 am. this is digital clock, this is
working on the basis of Binary system.

Similarly all computers or devices working with binary system are the digital devices.

Digital Computer!
Classify and discuss different types of digital computer.
There are four types of digital computer:
a). Micro computers;
b). Mini computers;
 c). Main frame computers;
d). Super computers;
Micro computer:
In which the various integrated circuits and elements of a computer are replaced by single
integrated circuit called a “chip”. Examples are the IBM pc, Apple Macintoshes, Dell.
Their continuing and rapid technology development had a major effect on the whole computer
industry over the past twenty century.
Mini computers:
Physically small computers compared with mainframes. They are used for special purpose or
smaller scale general purpose work. Example are DEC’S, VAX, RANGE.
Mainframes computers:
Large general purpose computes with extensive processing, storage and input/ output
capabilities. The market for these computers is dominated by IBM.
Super computers:
A large and very powerful mainframe computer is called a supercomputer. The Cray X-MP is an
example of supercomputer. Such supercomputers are applied to the solution of very complex
and sophisticated scientific problem and for national security purposes of some advance
nations.

5. Hybrid computers are computers that exhibit features of

analog computers and digital computers. The digital component normally
serves as the controller and provides logical and numerical operations, while the
analog component often serves as a solver of differential equations and other
mathematically complex equations.
An example of a hybrid computer system is a cement plant where all calculations are
made by digital systems (digital computers) and accordingly action such ass increase
of certain material in the furnace and increase/decrease of fuel for temperature is
performed by the help of analog system.

A hybrid computers:

A hybrid computer may refer to any of the following: When referring to a portable or home
user computer, hybrid computer is a slang term used to describe a 2-in-1PC. A 2-in-1 PC
consists of a screen and a detachable keyboard and has the functionality of both a laptop
computer and a tablet.

Examples of hybrid computers:

· An example of a hybrid computer system is a cement plant where all calculations are made
by digital systems (digital computers) and accordingly action such ass increase of certain
material in the furnace and increase/decrease of fuel for temperature is performed by the
help of analog system.
· Gas Pump Station (where measurement of gas by analog system, and displaying such
calculation by digital system (computer).

6. A supercomputer is a computer with a high level of performance compared to a

general-purpose computer. The performance of a supercomputer is commonly
measured in floating-point operations per second (FLOPS) instead of million
instructions per second (MIPS).

A supercomputer is a computer that performs at or near the currently highest

operational rate for computers. Traditionally, supercomputers have been used
for scientific and engineering applications that must handle very large databases
or do a great amount of computation (or both).

Examples of special-purpose supercomputersinclude Belle, Deep Blue, and Hydra,

for playing chess, Gravity Pipe for astrophysics, MDGRAPE-3 for protein structure
computation molecular dynamics and Deep Crack, for breaking the DES cipher.

7. Large scale computing is the deployment of a process onto more than one
chunk of memory, typically running on more than one hardware element or node.
"Large scale" generally refers to the use of multiple nodes that collaborate on a
few levels to complete a task.

Large scale computing is the deployment of a process onto more than one chunk of
memory, typically running on more than one hardware element or node.

"Large scale" generally refers to the use of multiple nodes that collaborate on a few
levels to complete a task. The nodes can use middleware of some kind, allowing
multiple nodes to share the load of processing incoming requests in software. The
nodes could be collaborating at the operating system level, or running as a 'cluster'.
There could be hardware resource collaboration, such as parallel processing chipsets
 installed, to increase the performance of the large scale computing deployment.

The term is quite broad - in more recent times it has come to refer to the use of
software designed to be used on more than tens or hundreds of nodes, but on
thousands of nodes, to process data on a scale not even clustered computers with
middleware could process.

It starts from typical examples of actual large scale distributed systems, which cover
the well known categories, such as Enterprise Information Systems, Peer-to-Peer
Systems, Grids, Utility and Volunteer Computer Systems.

8. They were primarily designed for business applications and services that require
the performance and efficiency of mainframe computers. Minicomputers are
generally used as mid-range servers, where they can operate mid-sized software
applications and support numerous users simultaneously.

Minicomputers are mid sized computers. In terms of size andpower,

minicomputers are ranked below mainframes. A minicomputer is a
multiprocessing system capable of supporting from 4 to about 200 users
simultaneously. The use of the term Minicomputer has diminished and they have
merged with servers.

Types of mini computer

 Tablet PC:
 Smartphones:
 Netbook:
 Touch screen pads:
 iPod:
 9. The definition of a small personal computer with a microprocessor as a
central processor is an example of a microcomputer. A tiny little
handheld computerdevice similar to a SmartPhone that has a central
microprocessor is an example of amicrocomputer.

Common microcomputers include laptops and desktops. Beyond standard

PCs, microcomputers also include some calculators, mobile phones,
notebooks, workstations and embedded systems. Smaller than a mainframe
or minicomputer, a microcomputer uses a single integrated semiconductor
chip for its central processing unit (CPU).