difference between microcontroller and microproccesor

A microprocessor is the computing machine that one can find in the desktop which doesnt have any peripherls, or memory, interrupts, i/o ports its just a computing machine with ALU. On the other hand a micrcontroller has a computing machine together with interrupts, timers, memory, i/o ports and serial interface. It is a computer which can execute only one task unlike a general purpose computer.

A microprocessor , such as is used in computers, as an on-board memory as well called a cache. It doesnt have an on-chip interpreter as a controller does but rather it uses other "parts" on the motherboard to do its bidding, such as BIOS and DOS. Software isnt loaded onto the processor as it is with a controller , rather it uses the harddrive and RAM instead. I was taught that microprocessors were the ones IN your computer, and microcontrollers are just a bit less powerful, but can do all the same stuff. A microcontroller has an interpreter ( or compiler ) burnt into its on-board memory that a programmer can use to upload software from an host computer to run programs. As an example, the Basic Stamp microcontroller uses a form of BASIC as its software interpreter and there is enough empty memory space to load and run small programs.