Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Laboratory >

Software installation is what most defines a computer

13:11 / 17.07.03

Software installation is what most defines a computer. Except, it obviously isn't and this is just a really, really bad corporate plug. What does though? What most defines a computer?
Currently, I'd say a network connection. The actual content of the puter isn't important rather the ability to reach out and gather new content at will.

All Acting Regiment

13:17 / 17.07.03

Um, you might have to define "define" for us. And "computer". If a machine can process information and perform mathematics, it's a computer to me.

13:23 / 17.07.03

Just play with it, Chris. Going by the article we mean what is the most vital role that a puter should carry out.

00:12 / 18.07.03

Adaption to any problem.
Fook Turing and halting problems.
A perfect computer takes the input and gives the desired output.
The computer that best provides this is the better computer.

07:31 / 18.07.03

Wombat - Any examples of that? I'd think translation software. Which is getting better and is so damn useful. However, we are talking about a software program rather than an actual computer. Maybe the most vital role of a computer is to provide useful software, such as adaptive AI stuff, but then you gotta get the stuff on there in a stable manner.

10:30 / 19.07.03

Most people don't have a clue what they're doing anyway. For example, install shield under MS Windows, for all it's sins, usually does a reasonable job. It's just that most people just delete files later, not use the "uninstall" option, thus confusing the poor thing.

RPM's under linux are not bad. They're a bundle containing all the files you need and rules to install them (all nice and automatic). They also know which other RPM's they depend on. Eg. You can't uninstall the 3d graphics RPM if one of your games depends on it (without uninstalling the game too). When RPM's don't work they are a pain in the arse.

There are 2 kinds of user interface. The kind which is aimed to allow people to get the jobs they want done with the smallest learning curve as possible, and the kind which have a big learning curve but will grant the dedicated user all the possible functionality. For example "Windows Notepad" and "vi" (a very complex & useful UNIX text editor). Both are good solutions to the same problem but aimed at entirely different people.

12:37 / 19.07.03

Probably not the answer you were looking for, but I'd say what most defines a computer is... da-da-dum... the USER! Or more specifically - the client, which can be human, software or another computer.

Internet browser closest to the tv (for those ever-so-important imdb searches)
Rental PC at LANs
Apartment Firewall/Router

All definitions of the same machine as seen by different clients.

tom-karika nukes it from orbit

15:16 / 20.07.03

Computer definition is a machine that can do this:

COMPLEX INPUT => COMPUTER => OUTPUT

Where 'COMPLEX' means something other than a '1' or a '0' (So it has to do something more than react to a single button press or on/off event; eg. my lamp is not a computer, as it only turns a single on/off event into another on/off event. My hi-fi is a computer, however, as it can turn a sequence of appropriate button presses into a particular order to play tracks from a storage medium (CD). So is my watch, as it can turn a sequence of button presses into a representation of the correct time.

A computer also seems to be intrinsically associated with some sort of data storage. The hi-fi needs a CD for data storage, and memory to store the list of track numbers. The watch has to store the correct time. But the lamp doesn't do any storage at all, unless you count the mechanical storage of current on/off status by the toggle switch.

Can anyone think of a computer which doesn't require some form of data storage to occur?