How do a computer’s hardware and software actually connect?
In: Technology
The same way ink in shapes on paper (or a screen) “connect” with words…because we assign meaning to physical patterns.
The computer only has hardware. Software is the meaning *we* attach to particular states of hardware. The computer is just blindly running very complicated electrical circuits with varying voltages. We assign meanings (usually “1” and “0”) to the voltages, and by wiring it up in clever ways we can make it do way more complicated things like light up colored lights in the right pattern to make a picture and things like that, but the computer has absolutely no idea that’s what it’s doing. Just like your screen doesn’t “know” that this is a reddit post with any meaning to anyone…it’s just a complicated pattern of high and low voltages on wires and electrical components.
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