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
Pretty much the same way you are just a bunch of cells. But, like each cell is actually doing a very different and specific thing, in a computer each preprogrammed circuit is doing a very specific and different thing.
Now, some of those preprogrammed circuits are part of the screen of the computer. These circuits control 1 thing and only 1 thing: depending on what they receive, they will light up differently.
The screen is connected (probably) to something else (unless it’s an All in One). The many types of preprogrammed circuits inside the other part of the computer are in charge of several things including, remembering things at the moment (RAM), long term memory (Hard Drive) and coordinating all the different preprogrammed circuits that work with the computer (CPU).
You, using input devices, change the input available in the RAM, Hard Drive, and sometimes even CPU. Stored applications in the Hard Drive, and running applications in the RAM, also change the input that goes to the screen. All of these interactions create a lot of different combinations of input, received, stored, and translated on your screen as different patterns of light.
This means, of course, that everything you see in your screen is simply the preprogrammed circuits on it cycling in very specific ways between all available possibilities between an all-black screen and an all-white screen.
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