Characteristics of Computer
Computers are used to ease the work. Although there are various types of computers, but they have some common characteristics, which are given below:
Computer Fundamental
1. Speed
Computer is very fast and reliable device. It can calculate a lot of complex calculations in micro seconds. Micro Computer can perform millions of instructions per second and Mainframe and Super Computer are thousand or million times faster than Micro Computers. The measuring unit of speed of digital computer is microseconds (10-6), nanoseconds (10-9), picoseconds (10-12) etc.2. Storage Capacity
Computer can store large amount of data in a small memory chip. Computer memory are of two types:(i) Primary Memory or Main Memory and
(ii) Auxilory Memory or Secondary Memory
One interesting thing related to secondary memory is that we can add these as many as we require to store data. Useful memory unit is as follows:
1 bit = 0 or 1
8 bits = 1 byte
1024 bytes = 1 KB (Kilo Byte)
1024 KB = 1 MB (Mega Byte)
1024 MB = 1 GB (Giga Byte)
1024 GB = 1 TB (Terra Byte)
The capacity of memory device may be in MB, GB or TB. Now we can think about the storage capacity of small memory device.