How do motherboards work?
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A modern computer needs certain things to operate. It needs a source of stable electricity. It needs short-term memory (a place to quickly save and recall numbers while powered on) and long-term storage. It needs to have ports to send & receive numbers to & from input & output devices, including keyboards, mice, audio, video, and networking hardware. It also needs something which can process lists of instructions to move numbers around between all these components, do math, wait for input, and generate output, all in time with a metronome-like pace-setter. Also nice to have: a battery-powered clock so it doesn’t lose track of time, and additional components to help it solve complex math problems quickly. It usually also needs some radiator-like devices and possibly fans to dissipate the enormous amount of heat that is generated by some of these components.
The motherboard is a physical, flat piece of plastic with all those things mounted on it, connected to each other via wire-like conductive paths. You connect it to power, connect all the input/output devices, and make sure it’s got short-term memory and long-term storage, and voilà, you have a computer.
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