Computer Applications

Abstract

There are many definitions of the term computer. The Collins English Dictionary defines it as ‘… a device, usually electronic, that processes data according to a set of instructions’. The definition provided by Dixon, Hargitay and Bevan (1991) is ‘… a machine which under the control of a stored program, automatically accepts and processes data and supplies the results of that processing to a user’. Kirkwood (1984) offers a further variation defining a computer as ‘…. an apparatus which accepts both numeric and textual data, processes it without user intervention, and outputs results’.