Totally OT, but frustrated.....

[Scott Stevens]

On Sat, 26 Mar 2005 21:57:16 +0000 (GMT)
ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote:

> > That's because youre a real programmer and understand what a
> > computer is.  None of our (actually very smart and some even
> > experienced) grad students actually know what a computer is.  I
> > don't think hardly anyone does.
> 
> OK (and this came up in some private e-mail when discussing the major 
> off-topic threads here). What is a computer? Becasue I certainly don't
> 
> have an exact definition.
> 
> -tony
> 

I thought a computer was a man, or woman, who specialized in computing
sums and other mathematical calculations.

At least that's what my 1920 Funk & Wagnells says.

Being more on-topic, there is a lot of historical Data Processing
equipment out there that can not be considered 'a computer.'  IBM had a
thriving business in punched card equipment decades before the first
stored-instruction digital computer.

Is a 68HC11 microprocessor a 'computer' if I use it in multi-chip mode,
with some sort of serial terminal arrangement that allows user input and
programmability, but NOT a computer if I use it in single-chip mode and
the on-chip serial port is just used to read logged values from the
on-chip A/D?

-Scott