<P> Firmware is the technology which has the combination of both hardware and software such as BIOS chip inside a computer . This chip (hardware) is located on the motherboard and has the BIOS set up (software) stored in it . </P> <P> Computers have been used to coordinate information between multiple locations since the 1950s . The U.S. military's SAGE system was the first large - scale example of such a system, which led to a number of special - purpose commercial systems such as Sabre . In the 1970s, computer engineers at research institutions throughout the United States began to link their computers together using telecommunications technology . The effort was funded by ARPA (now DARPA), and the computer network that resulted was called the ARPANET . The technologies that made the Arpanet possible spread and evolved . </P> <P> In time, the network spread beyond academic and military institutions and became known as the Internet . The emergence of networking involved a redefinition of the nature and boundaries of the computer . Computer operating systems and applications were modified to include the ability to define and access the resources of other computers on the network, such as peripheral devices, stored information, and the like, as extensions of the resources of an individual computer . Initially these facilities were available primarily to people working in high - tech environments, but in the 1990s the spread of applications like e-mail and the World Wide Web, combined with the development of cheap, fast networking technologies like Ethernet and ADSL saw computer networking become almost ubiquitous . In fact, the number of computers that are networked is growing phenomenally . A very large proportion of personal computers regularly connect to the Internet to communicate and receive information . "Wireless" networking, often utilizing mobile phone networks, has meant networking is becoming increasingly ubiquitous even in mobile computing environments . </P> <P> A computer does not need to be electronic, nor even have a processor, nor RAM, nor even a hard disk . While popular usage of the word "computer" is synonymous with a personal electronic computer, the modern definition of a computer is literally: "A device that computes, especially a programmable (usually) electronic machine that performs high - speed mathematical or logical operations or that assembles, stores, correlates, or otherwise processes information ." Any device which processes information qualifies as a computer, especially if the processing is purposeful . </P>

Who developed the first concept of a computer