How your CPU works
This won’t be everybody’s cup of tea but, if you are curious about how a computer does what it does, here’s a link that explains how the arithmetic unit of a CPU works.
In simplest terms, a computer is an adding machine together with simple logic functions that can choose different operations depending on whether one electrical signal is bigger than another. Amazingly enough, adding/subtracting plus simple logic functions and a stored program are all that is needed to carry out the enormous array of tasks that computers do today. Of course, it takes a lot of clever programming to put together all the steps needed and it takes modern hardware to do the many millions of additions and subtractions that even a simple task requires. Mathematical whizzes like Alan Turing and John von Neumann laid the theoretical foundations and the integrated circuit made the hardware possible.
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