Learning what a computer truly is and how it works is crazy work

Posted by PsychoCowboy097@reddit | buildapc | View on Reddit | 70 comments

Soooo I thought of myself "tech savvy" growing up as kid when my mom, who was the expert "technician" when it came to new appliances and TVs, would ask me for help as I learned SUPER ADVANCED stuff like: LAN connections with video games and computers and how to setup Skype and Teamspeak and choosing which speaker the audio came through or input yatta yatta blah blah.... Boy, was I wrong. Knowing the difference between and HDMI and AVG cords does not equate to knowing how to update my BIOS or "enable secure boot". I know it may seem like this might be basic stuff to the actual professionals or people with livlihoods dedicated to computers, but to me this stuff is like what hackers do lol Im just curious, as i am slowly learning myself what the actual F\*\*K all this is (by that i mean anything from updating drivers to installing new software, building a computer, or even setting up stuff like a home lab), how did you get started learning about computers and what components do what, etc.? For me, as I hope some of you get what I am saying, its like I just walked in to a new city full of new stores and places to visit and things to explore, and I have no idea where to start. So far the stuff I have learned, i feel like, is basic surface level sh\*t in the eyes of a professional software engineer. My research and learning has always revolved around video games, for instance what Battlefield 2042 did a little while ago by requiring gamers to enable "secure boot" IOT play. (never heard of that and didnt know what BIOS is: which is **Basic Input and Output System** i think, for anyone who doesnt know lol) Or when i was like 14 yrs old, letting some Hungarian 16 yrold remote into my moms laptop to download and setup Teamspeak so i could play AOE3 with his friends. Its starting to spark an interest in what a computer truly does and what is takes for it just operate and i wanna know more in depth knowledge of it all, but is that even possible?

Reply to Post

70 Comments

[-]

TuvixHadItComing@reddit

>I know it may seem like this might be basic stuff to the actual professionals or people with livlihoods dedicated to computers, but to me this stuff is like what hackers do lol Everyone has their blind spots, either in what they know or in what they assume everyone else knows. Different priorities and experiences. Somebody posted on one of the troubleshooting subreddits a few weeks ago about internet speed issues and the symptoms pointed to their ethernet cable being the fault. So they said they'd be able to update the thread in a couple days when the cable they ordered off Amazon arrived. That broke my brain for a second that someone could have one (and only one) ethernet cable in their house. Then I realized my Dad probably only has one, but has a measuring tape for every room in the house. Jokes on him though, I can get a rough measurement using a known-length cable, but good like getting 1Gbps duplex over a Stanley 50' measuring tape.

[-]

elBirdnose@reddit

No shit

[-]

D-Alembert@reddit

Some of us old timers started with 8bit microcomputers (as they were called back then). This has the advantage that the electronics (and the data/processor internal logic the electronics drive) are fairly "classical" and diagram well. As time went on, more got bolted on, more got changed and rearranged, but each step was just an incremental change at the time. But over time that all accumulated. Today, a modern gaming PC or console is a towering edifice of technology where the way things are partly because of the way things were as much as from any elegant internal logic. So I think it's a bit more complex now if you didn't watch it happen, but it's also easier because we didn't have YouTube or the Internet back then, so there's a firehose of people to explain systems in as much detail as you care for, and that makes a huge difference

[-]

PsychoCowboy097@reddit (OP)

Wow, thats super interesting. Ive never thought about yall who got to watch the evolution of it all and learning as it came along. I do appreciate the ability to just google anything to help me learn, I can not imagine not having that tool and getting my answers that way. Hats off to yall

[-]

lichtspieler@reddit

The generation that grow up with 386/486 and early internet access had no other choice but to learn a lot about computer architecture or to remain a basic application user with (paid) help required for even the most basic maintenance task. Keep in mind, learning via internet was not as stupid as it is today with dumbed down youtube content and commercialisation, where clicks and views are more important as the content. Try to imagine the internet without the commerzialized social media hell hole that it is today. **What changed?** Basic ussage for mostly entertainment is well automated and dumbed down for the most basic users and you are no longer PUNISHED with high service / maintenance / cost if you remain willingly a tech illiterate. => there is just no motivation given to learn how the tech works It's less romantic as you think, this is done for business reasons. EASY TO USE hardware => EASY MARKET to sell trivial services later on.

[-]

MutedFaithlessness69@reddit

Also most computers were pos. I had an Packard hell in the middle 90s. It never worked. I had to learn how to troubleshoot components and the intricacies of windows using cmd prompts. Now I design software and run the product department. All because the Packard hell sucked lol

[-]

deadguy00@reddit

I literally spent allowance money buying a couple of the books for dummies series in the mid 90s to learn how dos worked thoroughly and to program in qBasic at the age of 14 when I was gifted a 286 Tandy my grandfather couldn’t operate well 🤣 curiosity is the guider of all knowledge. That said my own kids struggle to understand things because they are born into a world these things already existed for 2-5x their whole life’s length and that becomes a history book much larger than how dos works but we all got to learn along the way as it happened, we just need to spend a little more time educating our youth on these now classic concepts of electron management and how “devices” in general work.

[-]

Gumbode345@reddit

Yeah. Unimaginable for anyone below 30. I try to explain it to my kids and I’m not sure it percolates.

[-]

Environmental-Pool62@reddit

Watch this: https://youtu.be/QZwneRb-zqA?si=QeieoXNbto1Oi-yG

[-]

Azurefroz@reddit

I am watching it, thank you for this gem!

[-]

Penny_Farmer@reddit

I feel you OP. I was a computer wizard 20 years ago. Took a long hiatus. I’m still a “wizard” to many young folks, but still behind the ball of building a PC these days. I remember when 1MB RAM was was god-tier.

[-]

Gavcradd@reddit

You've still got it. I was a teen computer geek back in the 90s, building 486 and Pentium systems, lusting after a Voodoo card. I still remember the joy of buying two broken graphics cards for pennies from a local computer fair and getting one working by combining the components from both into one (back when the chips were socketed). It's all still the same concepts - I built my now 13 year old son a gaming PC a few years ago and it's easy to get back into - yes, NVMe has taken over storage instead of SSDs (or even IDE like I was used to!) and GPUs are now a big thing, but it's nothing that an hour of reading won't sort you out with.

[-]

Gumbode345@reddit

Right there. Been in pcs for the past 40 years and built 4 new ones over the last 2 years for kids or myself.

[-]

Xin946@reddit

I think you touched on one of my favourite things there, which is the fact that we still do wildly illogical things with the way a computer is put together simply because that's what worked well 30+ years ago and the entire community as a whole is essentially autistic and doesn't like change or outside input 🤣 A really good example in my mind is the current Intel socket/chip (IHS really) mismatch where that same top system has been used and tweaked for so long with square chips, that when they came out with a rectangle chip they kept the old design 🤣 personally though, I love the contact frame I put on my AMD chip, and that wouldn't have become a thing had the aftermarket not felt the need to step in and fix the design flaws on Intel sockets.

[-]

EnvironmentalKit@reddit

I count anything more complicated than an ATMega as a magic rock that has been forced to think and have no idea how anything works

[-]

D-Alembert@reddit

Of course a modern ATMega would run rings around early home computers, so that's not bad :)

[-]

ConfusedAdmin53@reddit

It's not even forced to think; it's forced to add ones and zeroes. 😭

[-]

JustCallMeBigD@reddit

If you really want to blow OP's mind, tell them about the time before USB and Plug 'N Play, and having to configure everything manually by setting jumpers or else you'd fry your CPU, or at best your SoundBlaster, floppy controller, and CGA card wouldn't work together until you figured out the magic combination. For the killshot, let's discuss MFM hard disk drives that were usually around 5-10 megabytes.

[-]

parasubvert@reddit

Still can buy them on eBay! https://ebay.us/m/BCCHNI We can go anywhere further back to datasettes…. https://ebay.us/m/PzRdRi And my first modem…. https://ebay.us/m/dRbYSp .. if I told my 10-year-old self that was excited for 300 bits per second that I now have 2.5 billion bits per second to my house, I think he’d faint

[-]

purinikos@reddit

My first computer had 500mb (i think) hard drive, then a couple of years later I upgraded to A WHOLE 1GB. Insane. Nowadays I can download 12MB/s which would fill it up in a matter of minutes. It's incredible how fast computers evolved

[-]

lordhooha@reddit

If you really want to start blowing your mind look up network engineering, cybersecurity, coding etc

[-]

Xin946@reddit

Please don't take this to heart, but I laughed so hard at the point in your story where you admitted you knew just enough to be a danger to yourself and those around you 🤣 letting some random "kid" from another country remote into your mum's laptop is WILD haha. I would instantly ban any of my kids from computer access for that one, especially because we have remote access set up on every device, so they know what it is/why it's there and the very clear rule that I am the only one in the house allowed to even have it running (if I have to fix software level issues I'd rather do them from my desk/chair with my peripherals and be able to multitask). Yeah, that's wild, that's actually 100% a whole strategy for scamming people these days and you just casually allowed it so some random could set up conferencing software 🤣🤣

[-]

Liesthroughisteeth@reddit

Got my hands on [one of these](https://www.amazon.ca/CompTIA-Certification-Guide-220-801-220-802/dp/007179512X) a number of years ago and went through it front to back studying and taking notes to help my little brain retain it. :D I was only partially successful, but it still helped a great deal.

[-]

PsychoCowboy097@reddit (OP)

You know it gets serious when a book about that stuff is $80 dollars lol

[-]

Liesthroughisteeth@reddit

Text books. We've had three kids in university over the years (the youngest now doing post grad work in the States), and they aint cheap. lol

[-]

Designer_Government4@reddit

I was born in ‘84 and was lucky enough to get my first pc at 14 so had plenty of time to tinker and figure this stuff out

[-]

Persueslox@reddit

I knew student software engineers who knew nothing about hardware or building a pc lol. It’s all abstraction and UI and ultimately what your goal is with the technology. It’s why the children of today compared to ~15 years ago know very little about configuring their PCs in relation to file systems, hex editing etc. The goal is to make these things as simple as possible for the user to interact and interface with and it goes all the way down to the bread boards or actual machine code(0s and 1s). Still it’s invaluable to dig a bit deeper past the layer of abstraction you are at. Lots of cool and interesting things going on in our magic metal devices.

[-]

Onemanpush@reddit

i know right, its a modern marvel, like your just taking electricity and making it do all this shit, pretty wild

[-]

Lt_JimDangle@reddit

Electricity and rocks.

[-]

Onemanpush@reddit

etc

[-]

The_Captain1228@reddit

As someone with a bachelor's in computer engineering. It only gets worse the deeper you go lol.

[-]

melenajade@reddit

My work just sent me a new laptop. I’m in the process of breaking it. I mean break it in!! Lol but seriously, learning python scripting, I’m taking my computer and telling it what to do so it does it all at once vs me doing a task manually one file at a time. It’s using 90-100% of my CPU and memory using python tho. I might need to learn something different

[-]

AreMeOfOne@reddit

Everything you mentioned is basic IT stuff. If you want to learn how a computer *actually* works, then you need to study computer engineering. And yes it’s an enormous and highly specialized field.

[-]

PsychoCowboy097@reddit (OP)

Yeah thats what i was saying, its crazy to me how intricate it all is and im just now starting to scratch the sruface

[-]

SchwaLord@reddit

Check out the game Turing Complete if you want a fun game that teaches you how to build a computer up from logic gates. There’s also a bunch of Zactronics games that are way more involved that teach you a TON about electroincs

[-]

Pokepix@reddit

Watch crash course computer science. In just a few hours you'll learn how computer work. It's going to break the magic but it's so elegant you'll be able to admire it in a new way. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpIctyqH29Q&list=PL8dPuuaLjXtNlUrzyH5r6jN9ulIgZBpdo&ab\_channel=CrashCourse](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpIctyqH29Q&list=PL8dPuuaLjXtNlUrzyH5r6jN9ulIgZBpdo&ab_channel=CrashCourse)

[-]

Misterstustavo@reddit

For me, understanding computer parts started out with understanding system requirements for the games I wanted to play. You needed an X amount of storage, and a certain amount of MHz (pentium) processor to play the newest Need for Speed game. I remember my parents once bought a new PC, which had 4 or 6 GB of storage, which was an aweful lot at the time. It developed from there.

[-]

seklas1@reddit

My start was an old PC I was given away when I was in primary school still, with Windows 98. Those Windows broke and had to be reinstalled probably about 13 times, until my parents bought me another PC with Windows XP in it. I used to love searching System32 and deleting stuff lol 😅

[-]

MetalFaceBroom@reddit

I started with a BBC Model B and have been through everything since. Still never flashed a BIOS. It scares me to this day.

[-]

Tommy_____Vercetti@reddit

Everything you mentioned is still just the tip of the iceberg. When you start writing your own custom BIOS, drivers or CPU microcode, then we are actually talking about "how a computer works". But at that point you might just want to get a PhD in CS. Or, even if you want to stay IT-side, networking can get a lot more complicated. It's no surprise that many professional figures revolve around it.

[-]

Stars_Storm@reddit

It's very much a doctor's of different departments know different things situation. You can't know everything... Even the greatest sysadmin tech fellow working on google ai server room hardware upgrades is probably the worst programmer/developer you've ever seen purely because his role doesn't necessitate him learning many of the hundreds of programming languages out there to make bespoke programs. He'll probably have surface knowledge (As he likely has to make sure the software can run on the hardware.) but nothing in-depth.

[-]

TheWaspinator@reddit

Yeah, I think I agree. Modern computers are the combination of so many components made by so many different people that it would be impossible for anyone to know everything.

[-]

chrisdpratt@reddit

I've always sort of had an interest in how things work. I've never been content to just accept something is; I need to know why and how. From the earliest age, my mom recounts how I would constantly take things apart to see what's inside (and not always be able to get them back together, much to her chagrin). My grandfather was a techophile that always collected computer parts. I was assembling and disassembling computers by the time I was 8. I also was interested in software from an early age. I played around with breadboards and Assembly and taught myself to program using a book on QBasic I got from the library. My friend and I also frequented a local computer shop when I was in junior high and the owner started throwing us computers to fix/repair for cash under the table (too young still to legally work). By the time I was in high school, I had a job working for a local ISP in tech support and I was building websites on the side. I also had a fantastic Computer Programming teacher in high school that just let us basically do whatever we wanted and we sort of had a challenge among the class to see who could pull off the most impressive apps/programs. It wasn't necessarily all practical, but it did push us to try new things. From there, I just continued to play, work and learn. I continued to teach myself other programming languages, which eventually landed me in a career doing C#/.NET, and of course I still continue to build computers. I'm always playing with any new tech I can get my hands on. Basically, it's just been a lifetime's passion combined with a lot of good opportunities, friends, and experiences to keep it going.

[-]

ImSoRude@reddit

I have a degree in EE and I wouldn't be able to engineer a chip lol. The amount of manpower that goes into modern chip making is absolutely fucking bonkers. We are well and truly deep in technological marvel building in today's day and age.

[-]

SomeGuyInDeutschland@reddit

You'll love this PBS YouTube Playlist course for Computer Science from CrashCourse. It's very easy to follow along and it's full of fun facts and illustrations. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8dPuuaLjXtNlUrzyH5r6jN9ulIgZBpdo

[-]

megagenesis@reddit

I got to learn when I was growing up in the early 2000s. The pace in which everything moved on was stupendous. You'd put together a system, and it'd be outdated within weeks. I'm not as involved with them as I once was, but I do work in a datacentre these days as a tech where we work on server hardware a lot. I had our first family computer to pieces the day after we got it, and got it back together. I got handed down PCs that were a couple of years old, and nobody was going to show me how to fix the many issues that came up, so I had to learn. I was around during the Pentium 4 days, which is about 20 years ago now, so a lot of the stuff that was early 90s knowledge still applied then to an extent. Now, building a PC is so easy, everything is plug and play, and we're all the better for it to an extent.

[-]

RO4DHOG@reddit

You made me think of the Pencil mod: [Computers and Networks: Unlocking the Duron and Athlon Using the Pencil](https://computer-communication.blogspot.com/2007/06/unlocking-duron-and-athlon-using-pencil_08.html) Thanks.

[-]

Gavcradd@reddit

It is possible, but it takes a whole heap of interest, reading, playing and investigation. The major concept that you need to get your head around is abstraction. That is - someone designs / makes something that is relatively complex, but the thing they've made is then packaged up so it can be used as a component for a more complex system. You don't need to understand how the underlying package works, just that it does work - a PC builder can make a PC using a CPU without every knowing how it works, just that they buy one and put it into that slot and it works. In terms of a computer (and this is a massive simplification), transistors were created as electronic switches, then transistors were used to make logic gates, then logic gates were used to make a CPU, then a CPU is used to make a computer system. How far down that rabbit hole do you want to go?

[-]

Knoebst@reddit

Getting my IT degree was a magical period for me, every other day I got my mind blown about how things actually work. After having spent so many years playing games and surfing the webs, finally getting a glimpse of how it works was extremely satisfying.

[-]

pcdenjin@reddit

It's good that you have an interest in this sort of thing, because it will serve you well in the long run. Basic PC literacy is dwindling amongst the younger generations, which was unthinkable some 10 years ago. That being said, I would advise not to fall into the trap of getting too deep into things before you're ready. Knowing what BIOS stands for is nowhere near as valuable as knowing what a BIOS _does_. Remember that. As a kid, I knew that the BIOS was essentially the thing that made the computer boot and told it what to do from power on, and that it could be configured. I knew you could access it using a key held down during startup. That sort of practical knowledge - _that's_ what you're building. But, if you keep tinkering, the learning process will become less "work" and more "play", if you catch my drift. There are so many things you can do on a PC that just can't be done on, say, an iPhone, so I'd highly suggest getting into a creative hobby, coding, or streaming or something. Just for fun. You'd be surprised what you'd be capable of.

[-]

Ninlilizi_@reddit

I started because my parents taught me how to build and PC and write basic software as a kid back in the 80s. Then I lived my life as the technology developed, learning each new thing as it was invented. IMHO, this is all stuff that people should be taught by their parents.

[-]

beigemore@reddit

I learned a lot as a kid just trying to get games and hardware working correctly in MS-DOS. Learned about IRQ conflicts on cards, setting up a cd drive, trying to free up memory so teams would load with sound, etc. You are learning that this is incredibly deep rabbit hole! The best way to learn is by doing — always find things to be interested in and dig into them. It’s that collected random knowledge you build up over years that makes you stand out from the pcmr tourists.

[-]

MarkimusPrime89@reddit

I was 3. I wanted to play games. My dad didn't know how. I broke it until it worked.

[-]

Ok_Bathroom_1271@reddit

Make sure to write down 'learn linux' somewhere. It's a blast.

[-]

mostrengo@reddit

>Knowing the difference between and HDMI and AVG cords does not equate to knowing how to update my BIOS or "enable secure boot" I disagree. It's actually the same exact process: you try it yourself, once you hit a roadblock you go on google, and see if others have had the same issue and learn from their experience. If nobody had the same problem (unlikely) then you go on a forum like this one, say what you are trying to do, what you already tried and what is not working. >the stuff I have learned, i feel like, is basic surface level sh*t in the eyes of a professional software engineer. I'm going to tell you a secret: professional software engineers google stuff ALL THE TIME. And they go on forums to ask how to achieve a certain thing ALL THE TIME.

[-]

T-hibs_7952@reddit

I got started out of $$$ necessity. Saving money. Same way I got into car diy.

[-]

lexmozli@reddit

I can code, I know basic binary but fuck assembly. I started same as you, I learned how to code because I needed stuff for my websites or to make my life easier. Paying for a programmer was WAY out of my budget and learning was free so...

[-]

NarutoDragon732@reddit

You should look into how programming used to be before Intel invented the CPU. NASA had to use punch cards for Apollo, think Mark Rober has a video over it.

[-]

sunshine_prospect@reddit

Do you have a source? I can’t find it on youtube.

[-]

OolonCaluphid@reddit

https://youtu.be/dI-JW2UIAG0?si=YjbLQA6dJ0gu3MAe This is smarter every day and LTT talking about the Saturn V flight control computer.

[-]

NarutoDragon732@reddit

I cant find it anymore, it couldve been tom scott but im not finding that either. Sorry

[-]

sneaky_imp@reddit

Read-only memory modules on the Apollo rockets were hand-wired -- employees cutting and wrapping bits of wire to encode specific bit & byte sequences.

[-]

PsychoCowboy097@reddit (OP)

I think Ive watched that a while back. its insane

[-]

Halospite@reddit

It's nuts, isn't it? I know enough that the average person thinks I'm a fucking wizard, but little enough that I don't understand what the fuck an actual expert is going on about when one talks to me. I'm not a beginner but I wouldn't feel comfortable calling myself intermediate either.

[-]

dranzerfu@reddit

> Its starting to spark an interest in what a computer truly does and what is takes for it just operate and i wanna know more in depth knowledge of it all, but is that even possible? https://www.nand2tetris.org/

[-]

Hijakkr@reddit

A fantastic course that anybody truly interested in how computers work at a low level should check out.

[-]

glordicus1@reddit

Also: https://www.coursera.org/learn/build-a-computer which is the actual course they put out.

[-]

glordicus1@reddit

So what you're talking about is IT, which is more about the applications of computers. Going into bios and changing things is part of IT. Knowing the parts of a computer is IT. If you want to know how a computer works, from an engineering perspective, take this free course. It shows you how a computer works starting with logic gates. The textbook it is based on is used in computer engineering courses in some universities. And it starts basic enough for you to understand without any prior knowledge. https://www.coursera.org/learn/build-a-computer

[-]

imthe5thking@reddit

I’m friends with 2 brothers, one my age and one 2 years younger than us. They’re the guys I play PC games with the most. Me and the older brother enjoy building PCs, getting the best stable over clocks, etc. The younger brother knows around as much as you do probably, and the older one is pretty much like “God you’re so stupid when it comes to electronics, I wonder how we’re related” lmfao I’d bet there’s a LOT of people who would say the same thing about me and the older brother. Easiest analogy is the old “always a bigger fish” saying.

[-]

sneaky_imp@reddit

Computers are crazy. You should look into the invention of the transistor and follow how the crazy mfers who went before us figured out how to create CPUS using photolithography. Then go back further and look at vacuum tubes and the gigantic early computers like colossus. And then further back to Charles Babbage's Difference Engine. There's so much you can learn here.