How computers work (in terms of electricity and voltage)?
Posted
April 10, 2009 
Comments(1)
Comments(1)
behindthemask asked:
I am writing a paper on binary numbers and how they make a computer work. I understand binary numbers and how they are used to represent data. However, I am having trouble finding information on how computers use binary numbers to work. I have found that it is somehow related to voltage but I need a better understanding to write a good paper. Do you know of any good resources available to explain this? Or what keywords to use when googling?
Thanks for any help
Time to look up boolean logic, logic gates, followed by FPGA, and then CPU.
Once you understand binary numbering, the next step is binary logic. Transistors are wired together to make logic gates, which basically take one or more bits (binary digits) and produce an output.
Logic gates are how a computer can make decisions.
For example, a gate called and looks at two (or more) input bits, and if all bits are 1, the gate (transistor circuit) generates a 1 output. If any input is 0, the output is 0.
There’s also or and not gates. By combining these 3 gates in different combinations, (including feeding them back into each other), all kinds of circuits can be made: adders, multipliers, flip-flops, memory cells, registers, and even an entire CPU.