Classification of Computers based on how the data is handled
Classification of Computers:
Based on how they handle the data, computers are mainly classified as follows:
- Digital Computers
- Analog Computers
- Hybrid Computers
Analog versus digital Computers:
| Digital Computers | Analog Computers |
| Modern computers are called digital Computers | Older computers are analog |
| Digital Computers Uses numbers to represent data | Represent data using a range of values |
| Tends to break the data into small parts and use numbers to represent data | Data is represented as variable signals along with a continuous set of values. |
Digital Computers:
- Digital Computer represent data using 1 or 0. 0 represents the off-state and 1 represents the on-state
- 0 and 1 represent the binary state of the transistor
- A personal computer is an example of a digital computer
Analog Computers:
- Analog Computers were huge mechanical devices that consisted of electric motors, gears, and other moving parts.
- Analog Computers represent data using changeable entities such as voltages, rotation of gears, and hydraulics.
- more flexible but less precise than digital counterparts
- The differential analyzer is an example of an Analog Computer made by Vannevar Bush in the late 1920s. It was used to solve differential equations.
- Analogue computers have largely become obsolete, they have been used by computer scientists and engineers for mathematical calculations in the form of side rules.
Hybrid Computers:
- A computer system that comprises both digital and analogue components..
- CT Scan Machine, Ultra Sound Machine, Electrocardiogram Machine, Auto Gasoline Pump installed in Petrol Pumps.
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