Understanding how computers work
Wires, bits, bytes, circuits; they all sound so confusing. At least they did for me until a while ago. Probably because I didn’t get how computers actually work. The piece is intended to breakdown my knowledge of how those amazing plastic boxes work so that you (my awesome reader), can also share in my enlightenment.
Computers are basically anything that can do calculations, really. From the basic math calculator to your PC, and even your smartphone. They all work by doing complex mathematical problems to give us what we need. There are four functions that every computer performs. That is take input, store it, process it and then give an output. Each computer has some way of taking input. For example, the laptop has a keyboard on which you can type. But this input has to be stored somewhere to await processing. In view of this computers come equip with a form of storage called a “memory”. The reason for having a form of storage is that computers process things in a linear fashion. By linear fashion I mean they understand things “one after the other”. While the first input is being processed, the next is kept in storage awaiting its turn until the first one is done. Then it goes on and on till the input ceases. This process is done at lightning fast speeds and is barely noticeable. And this brings to the third stage of how they work; the processing.
Like a human, the computer also thinks through the input it is given. Computers come shipped with a microprocessor which is sometimes termed as the brain of the computer. The processor is the device which performs all the processing in the computer before rendering an output. Now here is where it gets really interesting. In any computer when data is inputted, it is converted to electrical signals which pulsate at extremely high frequencies. The pulsating action can be interpreted as “on or off” states. They also have other names, but the one best used to describe this is ones and zeros, also known as binary. Whatever input is fed into the computer is recalculated as binary. For example, when the number 3 is added as input, it is converted to its binary equivalent which is 11 (pronounced one-one). One unit of the binary equivalent is called a bit. But the processor only takes 8 units of binary digits at a time, and in this case 11 is only 2 units. So it adds zeros to the beginning of the digits to form 0000 0011. The 8 bits together make what is known as 1 byte.
All numbers easily have a binary equivalent, but the process is tricky for letters and symbols. So a group came up with a way to standardize binary for letters and symbols in what is known as ASCII. But enough of that. Once the processor receives the binary conversions, it does the expected computations on them and brings out an output. Technically this is how computers work at the basic hardware level. At the software level, for the computer to be able to send the input from a user for processing, there must be an operating system. The operating system makes communication between the hardware and software possible. It converts all input to assembly language, then to binary for the hardware to understand and process. Then it receives the processed input and shows an output. The output is typically displayed in a human readable format for easy viewing.
So in a practical sense, this is how all computers work. And its going to keep getting better and even faster.
