How Does A Computer Work

Computers have become during these last few years something as usual as landline phones or blenders in the kitchen. There was a time when computers were considered something close to magic. Scientific magic, that is. People were surprised at the sight of the wonders the computers were performing. Those who were working on computers were considered some sort of wizards. And they really liked to enjoy this status. The fact that this is true is shown by the huge amount of money someone like Bill Gates is making. I read a joke on a site which said that if Bill Gates dropped a $1,000 bill, he would not even bother to pick it up, because the time allocated to this operation could be put to better use and bring him ten times over the money he had dropped on the floor. Pretty impressive, ha? That really gives meaning to the words “Time is money”.

As time went by computers became more and more familiar to us. Their functioning was taught in schools, kids became addicted to them. Nowadays, there are very few people who don’t know how to operate a computer. It takes to live in a really poor and primitive country or to be an anti-computer dogmatic to ignore the use of the wonder machine.

One could say that everyone knows how computer really work. Is it really so? Or is it possible that most of us have limited access to the way the computer really functions. Let’s see a few details and then check if we already knew that.

In order to function a computer must be composed of the following parts: monitor, hard drive, mouse, keyboard, modem, and if needed, scanner and printer. All these go by the generic name hardware. Apart from these, there is a motherboard that contains all the chips that make the Central Processing Unit (CPU).

Once we have these things properly functioning, we can actually get down to business. In order to do that, we need to install the programs we want to operate. It is then that we begin exploring the fascinating world of virtual reality. The computing background of all our operations on computers is called operating system. MacBooks use mainly Apple OS, while regular PCs use Windows. The generic name of all programs is software.

Once we have this figured out we can begin. Every command we enter the computer is called input. Inputs are the operations by which we tell computer what to do.

When we start the computer, we provide the first input. The system tells CPU to start the programs we want to use and turn on some hardware pieces that we will need while operating. The entire process is called booting.

After all these operations, we open the programs we need and go on doing what we have to do. If we want to print the virtual version of the file into a paper version, we click on the print icon and follow up on the lead of the dialogue. It goes without saying that for this operation to work, we must first connect the printer to the computer’s hardware and configurate its soft properly.

OK. Many of the readers of this article will think they already know all this. Makes sense. Otherwise, they could not reach the site this article is posted on. What if I were to take this conversation to the next level and ask how does a motherboard chip works? Or the software? Here is where common use ends and professional work begins.

Watch tweets on: