Probably belongs in software, but hardware related. I been thinking about how a computer actually works for a long time, but have only just now decided to ask. How? I know all the components in the box work together to make it work, but make what work? How does a piece of silicon as small as it is, calculate the trillion instructions in a fraction of a second? At what point does an electronical-hardware change drive a program? How can a software change drive a piece of hardware? Surely there is some "human intelligence" in the box? And surely an almighty PC would have been needed to produce the plans for a CPU - it sure as hell wasn't designed and built by hand, yet how could that PC have worked with out the chip it was designing? (thats my paradox(???)) Someone clarify the great mystery of the PC for me, pretty please?
Really any entry-level tech training should give you most of the answers you're looking for in about the first chapter. For instance, CompTIA's 'A+' certification course. More advanced courses like the LPI-cert, RCNE, etc. will cover such content as well. In any case, it's way too much content to cover here. However, you might want to check out The History of Computing Project; they may have some of the info you're looking for! -AT
Nice link but I think I'm gonna say that I don't need to know why and how, and just to accept it as it comes. Probably easier than pondering the matter. The Creation Theory, anyone?
the "A+" certification course is pretty good. Very easy to understand the material presented through it.
A+ is cool i have all the vid discs that u watch to take the certification. i know them all off by heart ive just never botherd to take the test there may be an age limit on it aswel im not too sure about that though.
Silicon chips are lots and lots and lots of logic gates, in the circuitry somewhere like a CMOS (rather than dynamic logic) there would be a part which stores data on how to the chip operates probably. I guess CPUs are designed with the fundamental architecture first, and then probably designed for a prototype with some sort of hardware/program. Anyhow its just a guess really. I'd like to start on A+, but don't know where to start, and exams cost money aswell. Edit: Just remembered that static CMOs chips which are relatively simple comapred to CPU/GPUs are designed with hardware description languages. Hell its easier than planning the gates yourself!
