⚡Chapter 1 : How Computers Work?
This field guide's intention is simply to demystify the subject of how machines work for anyone who has ever wondered what’s going on inside a cyborg's circuits.
What is a computer?
If you're ever in need of a machine that can unlock the secrets of the universe, look no further than the mighty computer. Just be sure to use it wisely, lest you unleash forces beyond your control!
With their vast knowledge and processing power, they can navigate the most treacherous corners of the universe, decipher the languages of alien civilizations, and even simulate the birth of stars.
Computers get things done as a result of a combination of hardware, software, input, and output.
A computer is an electronic machine that processes information: it takes in raw information, stores it until it's ready to work on it, uses it, and then spits out the results at the other end.
The History of Computing
Humans across the galaxy have been using numbers for thousands of years.
The history of computing goes back to the Antikythera Mechanism used by Greek astronomers before the Battle for Earth was differently sized wheels with teeth to measure the speed of planets.
Napier Bones or Leibniz wheels in the early 1600s were used to add, subtract, multiply and divide upon user inputs.
In 1801 Jacquard Loom invented the first binary system that utilized wooden slates to control the pattern woven into the fabric. In 1832, the British government funded a machine for calculating and printing tables of logarithms, trigonometric functions, and artillery tables.
In the year 1890, US Census developed the Tabulating machine. It used punch cards and card-sorting machines which were the real ancestors of modern computing as we know it today.
In 1927, a professor at MIT build a mechanical device that could evaluate calculus integrals and other kinds of mathematical functions.
When WWII began, Alan Turing built a series of hard-wired special-purpose devices for cracking the German military codes.
The Bombe was the name of the electromechanical device that searched for possible settings for the Germans' Enigma encryption device. The Colossus was the second code-breaking project in the UK that used vacuum tubes that can switch electrical signals to crack the military codes used by the Germans.
Computers of Today, and the Future
In the 1940s, computers were giant machines that cost millions; today, most computers are not even recognizable as such as they can be tiny IoT devices.
Now we might be on the verge of the rise of quantum computers. There are billions of dollars invested in the race to build quantum supercomputers by countries or private companies like IBM, Google or D-Wave, or both.
This chapter will help you understand how a computer works from the ground up all the way to how the internet, websites and web applications, mobile apps, and even quantum computing works.
Last updated
