The followingoutline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to computing:

Computing – activity of using and improvingcomputer hardware andcomputer software.

• Computer science (see alsoOutline of computer science)
• Information technology – refers to the application (esp in businesses and other organisations) of computer science, that is, its use by mankind (see alsoOutline of information technology)
• Information systems – refers to the study of the application of IT to business processes
• Computer engineering (see alsoOutline of computer engineering)
• Software engineering (see alsoOutline of software engineering)

Computer science – (outline)

• Computer science
• Theory of computation
• Scientific computing
• Metacomputing
• Autonomic computing

See information processor for a high-level block diagram.

• Computer
• Computer hardware
• History of computing hardware
• Processor design
• Computer network
• Computer performance by orders of magnitude

After the commoditization ofmemory, attention turned to optimizing CPU performance at the instruction level. Various methods of speeding up the fetch-execute cycle include:

• designinginstruction set architectures with simpler, faster instructions:RISC as opposed toCISC
• Superscalar instruction execution
• VLIW architectures, which make parallelism explicit

• Software engineering
• Computer programming
• Computational
• Software patent
• Firmware
• System software
  • Device drivers
  • Operating systems
  • Utilities
• Application Software
  • Databases
  • Geographic information system
  • Spreadsheet
  • Word processor
• Programming languages
  • interpreters
  • Compilers
  • Assemblers
• Speech recognition
• Speech synthesis

• History of computing
  • History of computing hardware from thetally stick to thequantum computer
  • History of computer science
  • History of computer animation
  • History of computer graphics
  • History of computer networking
  • History of computer vision
  • Punched card
  • Unit record equipment
  • IBM 700/7000 series
  • IBM 1400 series
  • IBM System/360
  • History of IBM magnetic disk drives

• Accounting software
• Computer-aided design
• Computer-aided manufacturing
• Computer-aided dispatch
• Customer relationship management
• Data warehouse
• Decision support system
• Electronic data processing
• Enterprise resource planning
• Geographic information system
• Hospital information system
• Human resource management system
• Management information system
• Material requirements planning
• Product Lifecycle Management
• Strategic enterprise management
• Supply chain management
• Utility Computing

• Accessible computing
• Computer-induced medical problems
• Computer user satisfaction
• Human-computer interaction (outline)
• Human-centered computing

• Types
  • Wide area network
  • Metropolitan area network
  • City Area Network
  • Village Area Network
  • Local area network
    • Wireless local area network
• Mesh networking
• Collaborative workspace
• Internet
• Network management

The main goal of CbWN is to optimize the system performance of the flexible wireless network.

• Source coding
  • Codebook design for side information based transmission techniques such asPrecoding
  • Wyner-Ziv coding forcooperative wireless communications
• Security
  • Dirty paper coding for cooperative multiple antenna or user precoding
• Intelligence
  • Game theory for wireless networking
  • Cognitive communications
  • Flexible sectorization,Beamforming andSDMA
• Software
  • Software defined radio (SDR)
  • Programmable air-interface
  • Downloadable algorithm: e.g., downloadable codebook forPrecoding

• Cryptology –cryptography –information theory
• Cracking –demon dialing –Hacking –war dialing –war driving
• Social engineering –Dumpster diving
• Physical security –Black bag job
• Computer security
• Computer surveillance
• Defensive programming
• Malware
• Security engineering

• Integral data types – bit, byte, etc.
• Real data types:
  • Floating point (Single precision,Double precision, etc.)
  • Fixed point
  • Rational number
• Decimal
  • Binary-coded decimal (BCD)
  • Excess-3 BCD (XS-3)
  • Biquinary-coded decimal
• representation:Binary –Octal –Decimal –Hexadecimal (hex)
• Computer mathematics –Computer numbering formats

• storage:Character –String –text
  • representation:ASCII –Unicode – Multibyte –EBCDIC (Widecharacter, Multicharacter) –FIELDATA –Baudot

• Data compression
• Digital signal processing
• Image processing
• Data management
• Routing
• Data Protection Act

There are several terms which describeclasses, or categories, of computers:

• Analog computer
• Calculator
• Desktop computer
• Desktop replacement computer
• Digital computer
• Embedded computer
• Home computer
• Laptop
• Mainframe
• Minicomputer
• Microcomputer
• Personal computer
• Portable computer
• Personal digital assistant (aka PDA, orHandheld computer)
• Programmable logic controller or PLC
• Server
• Smartphone
• Supercomputer
• Tablet computer
• Video game console
• Workstation

• Apple
• Asus
• Avaya
• Dell
• Fujitsu
• Gateway Computers
• Groupe Bull
• HCL
• Hewlett-Packard
• Hitachi, Ltd.
• Intel Corporation
• IBM
• Lenovo
• Microsoft
• NEC Corporation
• Novell
• Panasonic
• Red Hat
• Silicon Graphics
• Sun Microsystems
• Unisys

• Acorn, bought byOlivetti
• Amdahl Corporation, bought byFujitsu
• Bendix Corporation
• Burroughs Corporation, merged withSperry to becomeUnisys
• Compaq, bought byHewlett-Packard
• Control Data
• Cray
• Data General
• Digital Equipment Corporation, bought byCompaq, later bought byHewlett-Packard
• Digital Research – produced system software for earlyIntel microprocessor-based computers
• Elliott Brothers
• English Electric Company
• Ferranti
• General Electric, computer division bought byHoneywell, thenBull
• Honeywell, computer division bought byBull
• ICL
• Leo
• Lisp Machines, Inc.
• Marconi
• Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems produced the first widely sold microcomputer system (kit and assembled)
• Nixdorf Computer, bought bySiemens
• Norsk Data
• Olivetti
• Osborne
• Packard Bell
• PERQ
• Prime Computer
• Raytheon
• Royal McBee
• RCA
• Scientific Data Systems, sold toXerox
• Siemens
• Sinclair Research, created theZX Spectrum,ZX80, andZX81
• Southweat Technical products Corporation produced microcomputers systems (kit and assembled), peripherals, and software based onMotorola6800 and6809 microcomputer chips
• Sperry, which boughtUNIVAC, and later merged withBurroughs to becomeUnisys
• Symbolics
• UNIVAC
• Varian Data Machines, a division ofVarian Associates which was bought bySperry
• Wang

• Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
• Association for Survey Computing (ASC)
• British Computer Society (BCS)
• Canadian Information Processing Society (CIPS)
• Computer Measurement Group (CMG)
• Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), in particular theIEEE Computer Society
• Institution of Electrical Engineers
• International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC)

• International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC)
• International Organization for Standardization (ISO)
• Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
• Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
• World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

See alsoOpen standard

• Apdex Alliance –Application Performance Index
• Application Response Measurement (ARM)

• Digital Bibliography & Library Project – as of July 2007^[update], lists over 910,000 bibliographic entries on computer science and several thousand links to the home pages ofcomputer scientists.

Major figures associated with making personal computers popular.

• Microsoft
  • Bill Gates
  • Paul Allen
• Apple Inc.
  • Steve Jobs
  • Steve Wozniak

• FOLDOC: the Free On-Line Dictionary Of Computing

• Computing
• Outlines of computing and engineering
• Outlines

• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Articles containing potentially dated statements from July 2007
• All articles containing potentially dated statements
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