How Computers Work

What Makes a Computer a Computer

must take input atore info process it and output results earliest computers made out of wood and metal, then moved on into electronic component. Started as basic calculators, now can play games talkt to eachother etc

• Input
  • Things that tell the computer what to do
• Storage/Processing
  • Processor takes info from memory, manipulates it using an algorithm, then returns it to memory, continuing until it can be output
• Output
  • anything shown or done by the computer

    Binary & Data

    almost no one deals with 1s and 0s, but they have a big impact on the inside of the computer
    how does this work? A signal can either be on or off, representing boolean options. One signal is a bit.

• the binary number system
  • consists of only 0 and 1, but can count up to any value. Written in 1s, 2s, 4s, and 8s etc positions.
  • Text in binary
    • Letters can be represented by numbers and those numbers can be converted to binary
  • Images in binary
    • Created by pixels, and colors represented by numbers
  • Sound in binary
    • Any point in a waveform can be represented by a number

Circuits & Logic

in order to process information input and output, a computer needs to modify the singals, which it does with tiny electronic signals that form circuits.
A simple circuit takes a 0 or 1 and flips it. This is a Not circuit Complicated circuits can take multiple results, such as an and circuit which will only produce a one if both values coming in are ones logic gates can combine to create complex circuits and adder can take two individual bits and add them together. You can put together multiple adders to add multiple bits together.
different circuits can do things like multiplication or subtraction
why are smaller computers faster? the smaller distance between circuits means info travels faster.

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