[This article is intended as an introduction or refresher course for readers new to computers. If you're already a computer guru, keep moving. LOL]

Personal computers or PCs haven’t been around very long in the scheme of things. Though universities and big businesses have been using computers for about four decades, the personal or desktop computer is less than 25 years old. And the so-called Internet is much younger than that.

So what is a computer? It is a machine. This machine is made to follow instructions given to it. The instructions tell it what to do with provided information. The machine is the hardware. The instructions are the software. The information is the data. That’s a computer in a nutshell.

For example, a PC has software installed that will format or process words. The software is called a word processor. The data is the words that you type on your computer’s keyboard. The software can select the size of the letters, width of the lines, spacing between lines, count the words, change the font or look of the letters, and even check spelling against a dictionary (also software). It even can help you edit for proper grammar. Actually, all it’s doing is following instructions previously written by a programmer.