Reading-Notes

HOW COMPUTERS WORK

Computer are changing the world! Whether thet are on our desktops, homes, our pockets, or offices, or anywhere else. While most of us use this technology everyday and everywhere, Have you ever wondered how does this all work? Keep on reading to know.

[What makes a computer a computer?] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCq8-xTH7jA&list=PLzdnOPI1iJNcsRwJhvksEo1tJqjIqWbN-&index=2)

As the pioneers of computer science explored how to design a thinking machine, they realised that it had to perform four different tasks, and they are common to all computers

Take input
Store information
Process it
Output the results

The earliest computers were made out of wood and metal with mechanical levers and gears. By the 20th century, computers started using electrical components, but these early computers were really large and slow. They started out as basic calculators, which was an extraordinary thing at that time, but a computer the size of a room took hours just to do a basic math problem. Today we are able to use them to communicate by speaking or texting, play games, control other devices, etc. And regardless of the different types of technology there is, they’re always doing the same four things. Its amazing how much we humans accomplished over the years.

Input

Its whatever the world does to make the computer do stuff. For example, typing on the keyboard, clicking and moving the mouse, using the microphone, recording a video, taking our regular daily selfies, and even listening to your hearbeats(when excercising your phone does that or your apple watch, how cool is that!), whatever you do in any device.

##### Storage and Processing The different inputs you made, gives the computer information, which then is stored in a memory. A computer’s processor takes information from memory, it manipulates it or changes it using an algorithm (a series of commands). Then it sends the processed information back to be stored in memory again, and this continues until the processed info is ready to be output.

##### Output How a computer outputs info depends on what the computer is designed to do. A computer display can show text, photos, videos, or interactive games, and even virtual reality. The output of a computer may even include signals to control a robot, and when computers connect over the internet, the output from one computer becomes the input to another, and vice versa.

CPU, Memory, Input and Output

Input

As we mentioned above, computers can take many types of input like touchpad of a phone or GPS, but even the sensors on a car, a drone, or a thermostat are different input devices. Here is an example of how input travels through a computer and becomes output: When you press a key on your keyboard, like the letter “B”, the keyboard converts the letter to a number, amd that number is sen as binary, ones and zeros, into the computer. Starting from this number, the CPU calculates how to display the letter “B” pizel by pixel. The CPU requests step-by-step instructions from memory, which tells it how to draw the letter “B”. The CPU runs these instrunctions and stores the results as pixels in memory. Finally, this pixel info is sent in binary to the screen (an output device), which converts the binary signals into the tiny lights and colors that make up what you see. . . .

….Wanna know more? Click on the links above (Titles)