9 replies to this topic

[The Simpleton]

The computer has become a very important part of our lives today, and all of us depend directly or indirectly on computers for most of the things we do.

If I remember well, the computer got its name from the adding machine which was the earliest form of a computer. So basically the word computer means A machine which calculates.

This name was suitable for the earliest types of computers which did nothing else but complex calculations. But today the common people don't use computers just for calculations. In fact, they hardly use it for calculations; they use it for a variety of other purposes that can hardly come under "calculations".

So I think it's about time the computer was renamed to something more sensible. Obviously that's not going to happen any soon, but it doesn't hurt to talk about it. Any suggestions?

[shadowx]

Quote

This name was suitable for the earliest types of computers which did nothing else but complex calculations. But today the common people don't use computers just for calculations. In fact, they hardly use it for calculations; they use it for a variety of other purposes that can hardly come under "calculations".

Incorrect. Everyone uses the computer to crunch numbers. It is the only thing that you *can* do with a computer.

A computer runs on binary, a series of 1s and 0s, for example the binary for 5 is 10100000 (the 0s at the end are largeley irrelevant) a compute simply performs a series of steps including AND, OR etc... which are essentially calculations and produces an output string of 1010010110101010101 etc... which is further calculated, or computer into HEX, DEC, OCT etc,... depending what the desired output should be formatted as.

So nope, the name is still accurate!

[rvalkass]

The Simpleton, on Apr 28 2010, 11:05 AM, said:

If I remember well, the computer got its name from the adding machine which was the earliest form of a computer. So basically the word computer means A machine which calculates.

Computers, were, people. Computer was the job title given to those people who did the number-crunching. They most often worked in observatories and with astronomical data, as a lot of repetitive number crunching was required on the data, and electronic computers did not exist - all the calculations were done by hand by computers.

When machines came along that could do the same task, they were simply called computers. What else would you call them really? Unless you were a computer, in which case you might have some rude words for them as they just put you out of a job

The Simpleton, on Apr 28 2010, 11:05 AM, said:

This name was suitable for the earliest types of computers which did nothing else but complex calculations. But today the common people don't use computers just for calculations. In fact, they hardly use it for calculations; they use it for a variety of other purposes that can hardly come under "calculations".

As shadowx has said, a lot of what you do with a computer involves calculations. For example:



Even so, the fact that these calculations have become so hidden from the user has changed the definition of computer, rather than changing the word. The definition changed when we switched from human computers to electronic ones, and so the definition has evolved to cover more of the tasks that a computer now 'appears' to perform on a higher level.

[Baniboy]

Hey, speaking of calculations, I don't know if I'm correct or not, someone more nerdy please verify:
Doesn't binary go like the first 1/0 isn't multiplied by itself. Then the second is once and the third is twice and so on. Now they all are 2^x? If it's 0, then the number doesn't count, if it's 1, it's count by 2 powered by the order number of it? So "11" would be 2^0 + 2^1 = 3 and if it's 101, it's 2^0 + 2^2 = 5?

And one last question actually regarding English. I know the superscript is the exponent, but how do you say for example 2^2 in a sentence? Do you say powered by or something? Dictionary didn't help me there haha.

Sorry I'm just newbie making a mathematical mess up there. Anyway, if you translated the word computer from Finnish directly, you would get a word like "information-machine". I guess the calculation part has been forgotten here, too.

[rvalkass]

Baniboy, on Apr 28 2010, 05:58 PM, said:

Hey, speaking of calculations, I don't know if I'm correct or not, someone more nerdy please verify:
Doesn't binary go like the first 1/0 isn't multiplied by itself. Then the second is once and the third is twice and so on. Now they all are 2^x? If it's 0, then the number doesn't count, if it's 1, it's count by 2 powered by the order number of it? So "11" would be 2^0 + 2^1 = 3 and if it's 101, it's 2^0 + 2^2 = 5?

Correct. Binary works with powers of 2. The order you've written them in though is slightly ambiguous. Remember that when written the digit on the left is the most significant one, so 1010 is 10, not 5.

Baniboy, on Apr 28 2010, 05:58 PM, said:

And one last question actually regarding English. I know the superscript is the exponent, but how do you say for example 2^2 in a sentence? Do you say powered by or something? Dictionary didn't help me there haha.

2² = two squared
2³ = two cubed
2⁴⁺ = two to the four / two to the fourth / two to the power four / ...

[Baniboy]

rvalkass, on Apr 28 2010, 10:21 PM, said:

Correct. Binary works with powers of 2. The order you've written them in though is slightly ambiguous. Remember that when written the digit on the left is the most significant one, so 1010 is 10, not 5.



2² = two squared
2³ = two cubed
2⁴⁺ = two to the four / two to the fourth / two to the power four / ...

Thanks, I'll try to remember that! Damn... me and my English skills...

[web_designer]

Computer all stand on numbers or digits like binary system, decimal system, or hexadecimal system and they are all use numbers.

-Binary describes a system that has only two possible digits (0 and 1). Every number expressed in the binary system is a combination of these two digits. 0 or 1 is working on the concept of ON/OFF, just like the light. 1 means ON and 0 means OFF. Just like this:

1: 00001 11: 01011
2: 00010 12: 01100
3: 00011 13: 01101
4: 00100 14: 01110
5: 00101 15: 01111
6: 00110 16: 10000
7: 00111 17: 10001
8: 01000 18: 10010
9: 01001 19: 10011
10: 01010 20: 10100

-Decimal describes a system that has ten possible digits (from 0-9). Every number expressed in the decimal system is a combination of these ten digits. Like this:

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

Any decimal number can be converted into the binary system by summing the appropriate multiples of the different powers of two. For example, starting from the right, 10101101 represents (1 x 20) + (0 x 21) + (1 x 22) + (1 x 23) + (0 x 24) + (1 x 25) + (0 x 26) + (1 x 27) = 173. This example can be used for the conversion of binary numbers into decimal numbers.

-Hexadecimal numbers work in the exact same way as decimal numbers do. Hexadecimal describes a system that has 16 possible digits (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and A, B, C, D, E, F). like this:



This chart will let us convert values easily between the various numbering systems:




A computer is a Binary machine deep inside. It knows only 1 and 0. When the computer shows you Decimal numbers, they are merely a translation of the Binary representation of those numbers inside the machine. Bits and Bytes in Binary form are long and cumbersome, we can't work with them on a daily basis.

Since the Byte is the unit of information that computers work with (A group of 8 bits), it was convenient to find a way to express bytes that was still sort of meaningful to us, and easy to work with for a computer. This is where hexadecimal came in to play: One Hexadecimal digit can be expressed in four Bits, 8 bits, or two nibbles, or one byte can thus be expressed by two hex digits. We can identify hexadecimal numbers in either of two ways: if there is H behind them (Such as 12H) or there is 0x in front (Such as 0x12).

The conclusion of all that long explanation is our computer or laptop is based on numbers and digits, you can check that in your computer from:

Start> all programs> accessories> system tools> system information> from hardware resources> check I/O or memory.

This path is for windows xp professional sp3, You can see clearly the hexadecimal that deals with the memory.

Now, do you really think that changing the name of computer is a good idea???

Edited by web_designer, 29 April 2010 - 12:00 AM.

[shadowx]

The easiest way to learn binary is to write a line of numbers multiplied by two each time, and then write binary underneath. So if i wanted to make 17 it would work thus:

0 1 2 4 8 16 32 64 ....
0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0

So i have one "1" and one "16" 1+16 = 7

23 is

0 1 2 4 8 16 32 64 ....
0 1 1 1 0 1 0 0

1+2+4+16 = 23

And so on...

[The Simpleton]

Oops! Looks like I missed out on my own topic. I see that the general argument is that since the internal workings of a computer still involves number-crunching, it should retain its name. Yes, that is indeed a valid argument. But apart from computers lovers and students, does the general public care about the binary system?! Do they care how the software that they use day-in and out works? No, they just want to get their work done.

You may ask, if they just want to get their work done, then where is the time to think about the name of the computer? That's also a valid argument, and I can't seem to think of a proper way to counter it I just feel that it's time for a change and it would be wonderful to see some ideas come by, to try and implement the change.

[sheepdog]

Well, I have certainly called my computer many many things other than computer.
But I'm not sure any of my sugestions for names would be appropreate. They might be down right bleeep bleeep bleeeeeped all out.