Questions about how computers really work

[Sgtjacques]

So I have built 4 computers so far and its pretty simple. Plug the pieces together, make sure to put on thermal paste, give it some power and a boot method and so on you go. But what has really boggled me is how a plastic or silicon board with a bunch of metal, gold and maybe even copper can produce graphics in video games, compute super complex algorithms and overall just do what it does everyday. So my question is how do we get a piece of plastic with gold and metal on it to produce all of that and how did the first computers get programmed to do it?

 

[vrumor]

Im sure in this case Google is your friend. Im sure there are wikis devoted to this among other knowledge bases.

 

[USAFRet]

So I have built 4 computers so far and its pretty simple. Plug the pieces together, make sure to put on thermal paste, give it some power and a boot method and so on you go. But what has really boggled me is how a plastic or silicon board with a bunch of metal, gold and maybe even copper can produce graphics in video games, compute super complex algorithms and overall just do what it does everyday. So my question is how do we get a piece of plastic with gold and metal on it to produce all of that and how did the first computers get programmed to do it?

How?
That's literally enough books to fill a library.

 

[Sgtjacques]

Im sure in this case Google is your friend. Im sure there are wikis devoted to this among other knowledge bases.

Ya, i googled it but all i got was tutorials on how to build a pc and how to put an OS on one. No real info on how the metal on a motherboard and cpu plus gpu with ram makes a pc do what it does.

 

[USAFRet]

Im sure in this case Google is your friend. Im sure there are wikis devoted to this among other knowledge bases.

Ya, i googled it but all i got was tutorials on how to build a pc and how to put an OS on one. No real info on how the metal on a motherboard and cpu plus gpu with ram makes a pc do what it does.

Your google is broken...:lol:

"How does ram work?"
https://www.quora.com/How-does-ram-work
https://computer.howstuffworks.com/ram.htm
http://www.explainthatstuff.com/how-computer-memory-works.html

 

[Sgtjacques]

Im sure in this case Google is your friend. Im sure there are wikis devoted to this among other knowledge bases.

Ya, i googled it but all i got was tutorials on how to build a pc and how to put an OS on one. No real info on how the metal on a motherboard and cpu plus gpu with ram makes a pc do what it does.

Your google is broken...:lol:

"How does ram work?"
https://www.quora.com/How-does-ram-work
https://computer.howstuffworks.com/ram.htm
http://www.explainthatstuff.com/how-computer-memory-works.html

Alright so ram, gpus, and motherboards work based off of binary code and the binary code is ran though the system via capacitors which send out electrical impulses. So how do these electrical impulses turn into effects on a screen and process information. Also how did they program the first computer to recognize these impulses? That is if i interpreted everything correctly lol

 

[USAFRet]

Alright so ram, gpus, and motherboards work based off of binary code and the binary code is ran though the system via capacitors which send out electrical impulses. So how do these electrical impulses turn into effects on a screen and process information. Also how did they program the first computer to recognize these impulses? That is if i interpreted everything correctly lol

That was just an example of google search results.

How to turn ones and zeros into stuff that does stuff.
search for "first compiler", leads to...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_compiler_construction


What you've asked is incredibly broad. As said, literally a whole library.

 

[Sgtjacques]

Alright so ram, gpus, and motherboards work based off of binary code and the binary code is ran though the system via capacitors which send out electrical impulses. So how do these electrical impulses turn into effects on a screen and process information. Also how did they program the first computer to recognize these impulses? That is if i interpreted everything correctly lol

That was just an example of google search results.

How to turn ones and zeros into stuff that does stuff.
search for "first compiler", leads to...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_compiler_construction


What you've asked is incredibly broad. As said, literally a whole library.

May of been broad but its what i was looking for

 

[USAFRet]

So I have built 4 computers so far and its pretty simple. Plug the pieces together, make sure to put on thermal paste, give it some power and a boot method and so on you go.

And it wasn't too long ago, building your own PC and getting it running was WAY more complicated than that.

 

[turkey3_scratch]

Im sure in this case Google is your friend. Im sure there are wikis devoted to this among other knowledge bases.

Ya, i googled it but all i got was tutorials on how to build a pc and how to put an OS on one. No real info on how the metal on a motherboard and cpu plus gpu with ram makes a pc do what it does.

Your google is broken...:lol:

"How does ram work?"
https://www.quora.com/How-does-ram-work
https://computer.howstuffworks.com/ram.htm
http://www.explainthatstuff.com/how-computer-memory-works.html

Alright so ram, gpus, and motherboards work based off of binary code and the binary code is ran though the system via capacitors which send out electrical impulses. So how do these electrical impulses turn into effects on a screen and process information. Also how did they program the first computer to recognize these impulses? That is if i interpreted everything correctly lol

I really don't like the concept of "send out electrical impulses" - that's sort of a misunderstanding. I had these very same questions as you until I started taking college courses on this stuff this semester.

Forget about capacitors for now, you seem to be more interested in digital logic rather than analog circuitry if you want to know more about computers working. We can start at the very lowest level, which would just be a bunch of analog circuits. But it's better to start at a level low enough in the digital realm.

I would first learn about logic gates. Understand them, understand them well. AND, OR, NOR, NAND, XOR. These logic gates are made out of transistors, so transistors are a lower level circuit element than logic gates.

Computers are just about combining small things to make bigger things. You don't always need to know how those small things work, just what they do. If you do want to learn how those smaller things work, then you end up having to learn what even smaller things do, without knowing how they work. Eventually you get to the bottom which is raw physics...

So yeah, logic gates are pretty important. latches and flip flops (flip flops are made out of latches, which are made out of gates, which are made out of transistors) will give you an idea how data is actually stored and modified. Latches and flip flops are made of gates, so learning gates first is a must.

Edit: And obviously knowing this stuff just scratches the surface, but once you kind of learn about it you sort of get these "aha!" moments where you start understanding how computers actually work.

 

[TerryLaze]

Also how did they program the first computer to recognize these impulses? That is if i interpreted everything correctly lol

It's all very basic stuff really,just like one light switch at your home controls one light source,you can link together a lot of light switches in various ways to make your lights do all sorts of stuff,computers are no different just much much more complex,you trigger millions of switches and the computer reacts accordingly.
[video="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXE6HjN8heg"][/video]

 

[Sgtjacques]

Im sure in this case Google is your friend. Im sure there are wikis devoted to this among other knowledge bases.

Ya, i googled it but all i got was tutorials on how to build a pc and how to put an OS on one. No real info on how the metal on a motherboard and cpu plus gpu with ram makes a pc do what it does.

Your google is broken...:lol:

"How does ram work?"
https://www.quora.com/How-does-ram-work
https://computer.howstuffworks.com/ram.htm
http://www.explainthatstuff.com/how-computer-memory-works.html

Alright so ram, gpus, and motherboards work based off of binary code and the binary code is ran though the system via capacitors which send out electrical impulses. So how do these electrical impulses turn into effects on a screen and process information. Also how did they program the first computer to recognize these impulses? That is if i interpreted everything correctly lol

I really don't like the concept of "send out electrical impulses" - that's sort of a misunderstanding. I had these very same questions as you until I started taking college courses on this stuff this semester.

Forget about capacitors for now, you seem to be more interested in digital logic rather than analog circuitry if you want to know more about computers working. We can start at the very lowest level, which would just be a bunch of analog circuits. But it's better to start at a level low enough in the digital realm.

I would first learn about logic gates. Understand them, understand them well. AND, OR, NOR, NAND, XOR. These logic gates are made out of transistors, so transistors are a lower level circuit element than logic gates.

Computers are just about combining small things to make bigger things. You don't always need to know how those small things work, just what they do. If you do want to learn how those smaller things work, then you end up having to learn what even smaller things do, without knowing how they work. Eventually you get to the bottom which is raw physics...

So yeah, logic gates are pretty important. latches and flip flops (flip flops are made out of latches, which are made out of gates, which are made out of transistors) will give you an idea how data is actually stored and modified. Latches and flip flops are made of gates, so learning gates first is a must.

Edit: And obviously knowing this stuff just scratches the surface, but once you kind of learn about it you sort of get these "aha!" moments where you start understanding how computers actually work.

Logic gates have always confused me and it doesn't help that i never bothered to learn about them. Guess i should read up on those too