Whats the difference between computers and calculators?
Computer is a fairly vague term meaning a processor and “some other stuff”. In the case of some early personal computers “some other stuff” didn’t even include memory meaning that without “options” they were entirely useless. Long ago, calculators were built to “calculate in hardware”. Sometime around the 1960’s however in early attempts to design electronic calculators, people realized that designing a central processor in hardware, and then writing software to simulate a calculator was a much better idea. (Simpler logic, easier to debug, easier to add features.) This revelation, has happened elsewhere and is the basis of the “microprocessor revolution”. A modern calculator is a computer processor with built-in software (firmware) for performing certain mathematical operations, a keyboard for input, a display for output and possibly other peripherals. Thus, while all the calculators in the museum have (or contain) computers, not all computers are calculators. People tend to call one u
