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A '''computer''' is a machine that is designed to perform a wide variety of information-processing tasks, depending on the program it has stored in its memory.  It processes (computers) everything as mathematical problems, although many non-mathematical functions can be ultimately performed. Computers manipulate all data in the form of numbers, and encode all numbers in either [[binary|binary code]], which is base 2, or in the case of quantum computers, ternary code which is base 3. Binary means that there can only be a 1 or a 0 in any data.  This makes it possible to process data electronically, since one voltage can be used to represent a zero and another voltage for a one.  Ternary systems are far more complicated, and still in development.  The average personal or server computer uses binary.

A '''computer''' is a machine that is designed to perform a wide variety of information-processing tasks, depending on the program it has stored in its memory.  It processes (computes) everything as mathematical problems, although many non-mathematical functions can be ultimately performed. Computers manipulate all data in the form of numbers, and encode all numbers in either [[binary|binary code]], which is base 2, or in the case of quantum computers, ternary code which is base 3. Binary means that there can only be a 1 or a 0 in any data.  This makes it possible to process data electronically, since one voltage can be used to represent a zero and another voltage for a one.  Ternary systems are far more complicated, and still in development.  The average personal or server computer uses binary.

==History==

==History==

[[Image:Babbage.jpg|right|thumb|200px|Contemporary (1800's) illustration of what Charles Babbage's Difference Engine might have looked like.]]

[[Image:Babbage.jpg|right|thumb|200px|Contemporary (1800's) illustration of what Charles Babbage's Difference Engine might have looked like.]]