| | Encyclopedia: Computing (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-12) |
 | | Originally, a "computer" was a person who performed numerical calculations under the direction of a mathematician, often with the aid of a variety of mechanical calculating devices from the abacus onward. |
 | | Computers have been used to control mechanical devices since they became small and cheap enough to do so; indeed, a major spur for integrated circuit technology was building a computer small enough to guide the Apollo missions and the Minuteman missile, two of the first major applications for embedded computers. |
 | | Since computers are designed to operate with binary numbers, all data and instructions must be represented in this form; the machine language, in which the computer operates internally, consists of the various binary codes that define instructions together with the formats in which the instructions are written. |
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