ELI5. If a computer is made up of preprogrammed circuits, then how does it display anything on its screen, even if that particular thing hasn’t been preprogrammed in its circuits?
In: Technology
In general, it can be thought of as [data]-[scene]-[render]-[screen]
Part of the computer maintains the data that needs to be displayed to the user and processes inputs. Part of the software and perhaps some hardware is dedicated to rendering the inputs and outputs, such as a screen display with touchscreen input.
In reverse order, a calculator that displays 2+5=7 on screen has a part of the hardware that translates the data of two plus five equals seven, into the display string [2 + 5 = 7]. In a similar manner, there are parts of the data processing the user doesn’t see, and there is also a portion of the data that keeps track of what needs to be displayed to the user. In math terms, the [data] includes the scratch sheet where the math is done, but the [scene] is just the question and resulting answer.
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