On Sat, Apr 22, 2006 at 02:31:59PM -0400, William Case wrote: > Hi; For any who might be interested in the question I posed a few > minutes ago, I have made some adjustments to quoted paragraph. It now > reads: > > "A digital computer is an appliance that takes in information meaningful > to humans; converts it into electrical data; stores it; may or may not > transform the data; and presents it as information to humans. > > Electrical data consists of a set, or continuous stream, of lower or > higher voltage pulses or bits. Data is transformed by transistors > switching electrical data from one circuit to another. The possible > transformations are: changing a higher voltage bit to a lower voltage > and vice versa; arithmetic addition of two sets of data bits; and, > moving data from one meaningful location to another meaningful > location within the computer." The definition you say is perfectly valid; but I think could be generalized somewhat. For example, many consider the abacus; the ancient Chinese calculator tool to be a type of "computer". So I might be inclined to give a definition such as: "A computer is a device that manipulates information" Wikipedia says: "A computer is a machine designed for manipulating data according to a list of instructions known as a program." Anyways, I think your definition is perfectly valid for a more specific meaning. -Ross