eli5: How does a cpu READ or know that it has to READ 0s and 1s from a storage device ( low level transistor scale)?
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A device, within the CPU, called the program counter keeps track of which instruction the CPU should execute next. One at a time, the CPU is given the next instruction. That instruction tells the CPU to do certain very basic things such as read from a location (given by a numerical address), write to a location, multiply two numbers in two different locations etc.
A read operation copies the value from a given address (contained within the instruction) to a local register within the CPU called an accumulator.
A write operation is the reverse. It copies the value in the local accumulator to the address that was given within the instruction.
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