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Do you ever ask that ever so fragile question about technology?
I always do, and when I do it frustrates me, as I can never think straight when I ask it.
The question is – How?
How do they do it?
All of it!
For example, electronics, how do all these electronic components work themselves? A resistor has a certain density of carbon inside of it, and some how this carbon can produce and electronic resistance! An IC (integrated circuit) can contain around 1000 different components, those IC’s are only 1cm in length and width, some maybe a little bit larger.
But microelectronics is one of those things that rattle your brain.
A lot of you reading this may have looked at the inside of their computers, well, I bet you ask yourself the question? All those tiny, almost insignificant, components, They are all sitting there on a piece of PCB, working away some how making your PC work. They are all helping you play your favourite game, or helping you to type up a post for a forum, or surf the net.
When you think of them like that, they are not so insignificant any more are they?
Another form of a BIG ‘How?’ would be – Us, our bodies. When you build a robot, you will never get it right first time, you will try over and over again, tweaking every small insignificant bug on the robot. When we were made, apparently all of our bug we
‘Pre-tweaked’. All of the organs in our body have no small bugs in them that will enable us from ‘working’. Did you know that we have a layer or mucus around our stomach to stop hydrochloric acid from burning all of our other organs? If we didn’t have that mucus we wouldn’t work! Unlike making a robot, that small bug was already thought of and solved.
I think we take our technology for granted. I imagine you all kick your PC’s from time to time, because it has stalled again! Next time you are going to kick your PC, Don’t! Remember about all those small components, what they are achieving for you! You wouldn’t be reading this if it weren’t for them!
It is quite hard to write about thinking about the question, because it is hard enough to even trying to think about it alone!
When you really think about all this, the ‘How?’ question, could be the biggest question you have asked, or will be asked.
Think.
Badger_guy
I always do, and when I do it frustrates me, as I can never think straight when I ask it.
The question is – How?
How do they do it?
All of it!
For example, electronics, how do all these electronic components work themselves? A resistor has a certain density of carbon inside of it, and some how this carbon can produce and electronic resistance! An IC (integrated circuit) can contain around 1000 different components, those IC’s are only 1cm in length and width, some maybe a little bit larger.
But microelectronics is one of those things that rattle your brain.
A lot of you reading this may have looked at the inside of their computers, well, I bet you ask yourself the question? All those tiny, almost insignificant, components, They are all sitting there on a piece of PCB, working away some how making your PC work. They are all helping you play your favourite game, or helping you to type up a post for a forum, or surf the net.
When you think of them like that, they are not so insignificant any more are they?
Another form of a BIG ‘How?’ would be – Us, our bodies. When you build a robot, you will never get it right first time, you will try over and over again, tweaking every small insignificant bug on the robot. When we were made, apparently all of our bug we
‘Pre-tweaked’. All of the organs in our body have no small bugs in them that will enable us from ‘working’. Did you know that we have a layer or mucus around our stomach to stop hydrochloric acid from burning all of our other organs? If we didn’t have that mucus we wouldn’t work! Unlike making a robot, that small bug was already thought of and solved.
I think we take our technology for granted. I imagine you all kick your PC’s from time to time, because it has stalled again! Next time you are going to kick your PC, Don’t! Remember about all those small components, what they are achieving for you! You wouldn’t be reading this if it weren’t for them!
It is quite hard to write about thinking about the question, because it is hard enough to even trying to think about it alone!
When you really think about all this, the ‘How?’ question, could be the biggest question you have asked, or will be asked.
Think.
Badger_guy
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er-no SHEEPY
I hate low level languages! :D
You sound like my computing teacher!
1's and 0's refer to machine code, simply put are the computer's alphabet. Think of it this way an 8-bit computer (you will be using a much more powerful computer) has a set of commands each 8 bits long (ie 00000001 or 10101010) each one of these has a unique command. There is a limit to the number of commands, for this 8 bit machine it is 256 unique commands (2^8 = 256). These commands are simple, ie run, jump, store, etc. The way in which the computer determines if it is a 0 or 1 is by voltage, 0 means no voltage, 1 means ANY voltage (greater than 0 of course). You have to remember that electricity isn't constant and is constantly changing strength, that is why there are only 2 digits in the computers language because it is easier to detect whether there is or isn't any electricity but hard to measure the actual voltage of it. Computers used to run from cards that had holes in them, the holes referred to 1's blanks referred to 0's (or vice versa) and was pretty damn annoying when you put a hole in the wrong place. Thank-god for GUI's!!!!!!!!
You may take this knowledge in or just ignore it, this is referred to the human's choice/decision and makes us superior to ANY machine no matter how advanced it seems
You may take this knowledge in or just ignore it, this is referred to the human's choice/decision and makes us superior to ANY machine no matter how advanced it seems
DJ Sack wrote:
> You need to know binary codes and how electricity works. if you took
> AS electronics youd understand how ram and computers work. its all
> basically a load of switches opening and closing and creating code
> and information. so when i push the letter A on my keyboard there is
> a chip inisde the keyboard which knows that out of the 101 keys that
> say only 1 switch inside the chip must turn on, and for b two turn
> on etc etc. find out about andgates and OR gates in an lectrnics
> book and u might get it,.
when i go back to school ,i will be learining more about AND gates and OR gates, in IC's. But i didnt get the stuff about '0's and '1's - i wasnt listening! But keyboard is one of the simpler thing, what i am talking about is Hardware - motherboards, and how proccesors work, is that '0's and '1's?
> You need to know binary codes and how electricity works. if you took
> AS electronics youd understand how ram and computers work. its all
> basically a load of switches opening and closing and creating code
> and information. so when i push the letter A on my keyboard there is
> a chip inisde the keyboard which knows that out of the 101 keys that
> say only 1 switch inside the chip must turn on, and for b two turn
> on etc etc. find out about andgates and OR gates in an lectrnics
> book and u might get it,.
when i go back to school ,i will be learining more about AND gates and OR gates, in IC's. But i didnt get the stuff about '0's and '1's - i wasnt listening! But keyboard is one of the simpler thing, what i am talking about is Hardware - motherboards, and how proccesors work, is that '0's and '1's?
You need to know binary codes and how electricity works. if you took AS electronics youd understand how ram and computers work. its all basically a load of switches opening and closing and creating code and information. so when i push the letter A on my keyboard there is a chip inisde the keyboard which knows that out of the 101 keys that say only 1 switch inside the chip must turn on, and for b two turn on etc etc. find out about andgates and OR gates in an lectrnics book and u might get it,.
How is not the big question, because the answer really is WHO CARES. Just use it to your advantage,don't ask questions.
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