The term is also used, especially in the description of algorithms, to mean associative array or " abstract array ", a theoretical computer science model ( an abstract data type or ADT ) intended to capture the essential properties of arrays.

The term byte was coined by Dr. Werner Buchholz in July 1956, during the early design phase for the IBM Stretch computer.

Sometimes, especially in computer science, the term is used for any binary function.

However, the distinction between BIOS and EFI is rarely made in terminology by the average computer user, making BIOS a catch-all term for both systems.

Originally the word " broadband " had a technical meaning, but became a marketing term for any kind of relatively high-speed computer network or Internet access technology.

The term computer programmer can refer to a specialist in one area of computer programming or to a generalist who writes code for many kinds of software.

The term programmer can be used to refer to a software developer, software engineer, computer scientist, or software analyst.

* List of computer term etymologies

The term has been in use in the computer industry at least since the early 1960s.

" Since the term " CPU " is generally defined as a device for software ( computer program ) execution, the earliest devices that could rightly be called CPUs came with the advent of the stored-program computer.

Combined with the advent and eventual success of the ubiquitous personal computer, the term CPU is now applied almost exclusively to microprocessors.

The term theoretical chemistry may be defined as a mathematical description of chemistry, whereas computational chemistry is usually used when a mathematical method is sufficiently well developed that it can be automated for implementation on a computer.

This last term (" von Neumann machine ") is less specific and also refers to a completely unrelated computer architecture proposed by von Neumann, so its use is discouraged where accuracy is important.

Each computer acts as both the client and the server which means all the computers on the network are equals, that is where the term peer-to-peer comes from.

Early computer buses were parallel electrical wires with multiple connections, but the term is now used for any physical arrangement that provides the same logical functionality as a parallel electrical bus.

The more general term computer generated imagery encompasses both static scenes and dynamic images, while computer animation only refers to moving images.

More recently, with the advent of personal computing, and the growth of home recording, the term computer music is now sometimes used to describe any music that has been created using computing technology.

In computer and information science contexts, especially, the term ' concept ' is often used in unclear or inconsistent ways.

The earliest known publication of the term mouse as a computer pointing device is in Bill English's 1965 publication " Computer-Aided Display Control ".

Now ubiquitous, in current usage the term " cyberspace " stands for the global network of interdependent information technology infrastructures, telecommunications networks and computer processing systems.

The term computer system security means the collective processes and mechanisms by which sensitive and valuable information and services are protected from publication, tampering or collapse by unauthorized activities or untrustworthy individuals and unplanned events respectively.

Booting is the process of loading and executing bootstrap software by the computer during the boot process.

The computer would then execute the bootstrap program, which caused it to read more program instructions.

The computer term boot is short for bootstrap or bootstrap load and derives from the phrase to pull oneself up by one's bootstraps.

BOOTP is usually used during the bootstrap process when a computer is starting up.

The term boot comes from the idea of lifting oneself by one's own bootstraps: the computer contains a tiny program ( bootstrap loader ) which will load and run a program found on a boot device.

Since computer power has advanced rapidly and punched cards are no longer used, more sophisticated methods of imputation have generally superseded the original random and sorted hot deck imputation techniques, such as the nearest neighbour hot deck imputation and the approximate Bayesian bootstrap.

First, one snapped the bootstrap paper tape into the console typewriter, a Friden Flexowriter, pressed a lever on the Flexowriter to read an address field and pressed a button on the front panel to transfer the address into a computer register.

It consists of application software running under the operating system, and a USB or PCI card containing software to bootstrap the computer and to restore damaged files.

* 1980s: Accompanying the spread of the personal computer in family homes (" Famikon "), local shops increasingly began to deal in video games, and major gaming chain stores appeared on the market.

* 1994: The Windows PC boom and accompanying computer store growth began.

In 2007 Atkinson began working as an outside developer with Numenta, a startup working on computer intelligence.

Bootstrapping in program development began during the 1950s when each program was constructed on paper in decimal code or in binary code, bit by bit ( 1s and 0s ), because there was no high-level computer language, no compiler, no assembler, and no linker.

But the biggest shift in company history came in 1953 ; the Burroughs Adding Machine Company was renamed the Burroughs Corporation and began moving into computer products, initially for banking institutions.

With the development of efficient computer technology in the 1940s, the solutions of elaborate wave equations for complex atomic systems began to be a realizable objective.

In the early 1970s, efficient ab initio computer programs such as ATMOL, Gaussian, IBMOL, and POLYAYTOM, began to be used to speed up ab initio calculations of molecular orbitals.

Later computer programs began to share memory common to several CPUs.

The first computer using a multiprogramming system was the British Leo III owned by J. Lyons and Co .. Several different programs in batch were loaded in the computer memory, and the first one began to run.

It was Compaq's first non-portable computer and began the Compaq Deskpro line of computers.

During November 1999, Compaq began to work with Microsoft to create the first in a line of small-scale, web-based computer systems called MSN Companions.

Though designed strictly as a mechanism to support " natural language conversation " with a computer, ELIZA's DOCTOR script was found to be surprisingly successful in eliciting emotional responses from users who, in the course of interacting with the program, began to ascribe understanding and motivation to the program's output.

In the 1970s and early 1980s, the software industry began using technical measures ( such as only distributing binary copies of computer programs ) to prevent computer users from being able to study and modify software.

With the advent of computer printers and desktop publishing in the 1980s, fanzines began to look far more professional.

Warnings about a computer virus named " Good Times " began being passed around among Internet users in 1994.

In the area of computer programming, the invention of the Linux operating system began as a student's hobby.

In reaction to the increasing media use of the term exclusively with the criminal connotation, the computer community began to differentiate their terminology.

Pressured by media coverage, congressman Dan Glickman called for an investigation and began work on new laws against computer hacking.

It was shortly after this development began that Konix founder and chairman Wyn Holloway came across a magazine article that described the work of a British group of computer hardware designers whose latest design was looking for a home.

Kurzweil's next major business venture began in 1978, when Kurzweil Computer Products began selling a commercial version of the optical character recognition computer program.

* During the decade, Windows 2000 And Windows XP and Microsoft Office 2003 And Windows vista And Microsoft Office 2008 And Then Windows 7 become the ubiquitous industry standards in personal computer software until the end of the decade, when Apple began to slowly gain market share.