How a computer works

Computers seem like very complex devices however when you understand the individual pieces
of a computer it is very easy to understand how it works. Generally all computers are made up of
the following three categories:
Input Devices These are anything that transmits data into your computer such as a key board
or mouse.
Internal Hardware This includes the inner workings of the computer such as: the
motherboard, Central Processing Unit (CPU), Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), hard drives, and
Random Access Memory (RAM).
Output Devices These are anything that outputs information to the user such as a monitor,
printer, or speakers.
Now in order to understand how a computer processes information we will walk through what
takes place when a user types a single key on a keyboard. When a user types the letter a on
their keyboard the signal received from the button press is immediately transferred from the
keyboard or Input Device into the USB slot of the Motherboard. Once received on the
motherboard this data is transferred to the CPU which decides where the data needs to be routed.
The CPU pushes the data to the GPU as this is the piece of your computer that controls what is
displayed. The GPU then passes that same data to your Monitor or Output Device which will
then display the letter a on your screen (see the flow chart below for a reference).
User types the letter a on the
Keyboard or Input Device

Data is received in the USB slot

of the Motherboard

Data is displayed on the monitor

or Output Device as the letter
A
Internal Hardware

Data is received and routed by

the GPU

Data is received and routed by

the CPU

Now that you know what it takes for a computer to computer a simple keystroke lets help you
understand how all pieces of the computer are actually able to communicate. The different parts
of the computer follow different rules. This means that when the keyboard is sending signals to
the motherboard, the motherboard is converting that information from how to keyboard transmits
it to how the mother board transmits it. The only reason this is possible is because of a very
critical factor, the Operating System (OS). The OS is basically a large chunk of programing code
that tells every part of the computer what to do. Think of the OS as micromanaging supervisor
who speaks every known language. The OS allows different components to understand each
others rules. The OS also is what powers the Graphical User Interface (GUI). This is what you
see when you actually look at your screen and it prevents the users from interacting with a PC
using command line such as the OS called DOS which did not have a built in GUI. Basically the
OS enables us to interact with the computer using our mouse and keyboard and gives every
component of the computer instructions as data is processed.
Now you know how a computer actually works. Next time you type a letter on a keyboard think
about how much work your computer is doing to display that one letter .It is amazing that all of
this happens in the time that it takes us to push a button on a keyboard.