Computers began to be used as mass market electronic devices in 1970s which is popularly known as personal computer era. They were intended for individual use much like any other electronic device like a calculator, although with much advanced functionalities. Basically, you bought a computer. You bought the software. You started using it for your individual purposes. Eventually, there was a need to inter-connect computers so that they can communicate to each other (e.g email, instant messaging) and with other devices (e.g printers). This gave rise to Computer Networks of personal computers.

A computer network represents an interconnection of multiple computers and/or other devices to facilitate communication between them.

This “communication”, if you think, is all about _ transfer of data_ between the devices, whether it’s an email, a chat message, a video call or sharing of file. Networking is all about communication which basically is nothing but “transfer of data”

Photo by Denys Nevozhai on Unsplash

Computer Networks are generally categorized by their size and physical capacity. e.g A LAN (Local Area Network) is a network that connects computers and devices in a limited geographical area such as home or office while a WAN (Wide Area Network) which connects computers and devices in a large geographical area such a city or country.

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