For example: A motherboard getting data to play a game for a console or a computer knowing how to be a computer. How do these things get programed into the motherboard when it’s a blank slate after the motherboard has been created when physically is just material? I hope that makes sense.
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At the lowest level, the hardware is the software. Computer instructions are built into how the CPU is physically connected to the bus, and thus the memory and other devices.
These connections are selected based on a code that you can give to the CPU. When designing the software, they take these codes and use them to create the machine language for that architecture.
Once you know how the codes work, you can then put a list of these codes and their parameters onto a device that allows long term storage. Either a hard drive or some form of flash memory. When the computer turns on, it has a boot loader that always runs and has a set number of instructions designed to load the first level of software, which then has just enough power and ability to load the next, and so on. This happens until eventually your Operating system is loaded.
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