How do you move from it being a collection of transistors to it being a fully functional computer?
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It’s actually super interesting to see it recreated physically. Essentially you replace the electricity with something physical like a marble rolling down a track or water in a pipe and the transistors with physical gates or valves. If we fill one of these paths with water or a marble then that is a 1 and an empty path is a 0. We have now physically represented the electrical components of a computer. From there we form simple “if/then” logic statements.
For example “IF both paths are in the same state THEN this gate will read as 1 (filled) and pass it down the line” or “IF either path is filled THEN this gate will read as filled as well and pass it down the line”.
From there we just have to represent numbers and mathematical functions in 1s and 0s. And eventually we’ll get an output we can read as the result we intended. Place a ton of these gates together and you can form more complex functions like determining the color and brightness of a single pixel on a monitor. With the speed of electricity you can do that function hundreds of times a second.
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