Microcomputers are programmable electronic information processing machines whose controlling circuits are combined into one solid state (entirely nonmechanical) component called a central processing unit (CPU). Microcomputers can perform complex...

Before the introduction of the personal computer or microcomputer to the general market in the 1970s, computers were physically large, complex, often unreliable, and expensive pieces of machinery. However, they operated in much the same way as they do...

Although there is no single definition, a microcomputer (in the 1970s and 80s sometimes shortened to micro[2]) is most often taken to mean a computer with a microprocessor as its CPU. Another general characteristic of these computers is that they occupy...