As we have mostly all come to terms with at this point, computers are a part of everything we do in one way or another, but what happens behind the scenes that make these intelligent machines function?
At the very least, all computers must have 3 stages that make up the computing process when making requests on our devices. The three stages are input, processing, and output, each happening every time we touch a screen or type on a keyboard.
During input, we do things such as type on the keyboard, touch a touchscreen, as previously mentioned, and click with a mouse to interact with different parts of the user interface (UI).
Once you have inputted your request in whatever manner, the OS now tells the hardware what to do to complete the action requested by the user. During this time, the "brain" of the computer or central processing unit (CPU) drives the processing stage by telling the computer how to compute and execute requests.
Finally, once the request has been processed, the computer will show the result by changing the display you see on a screen, playing a video, and/or distributing audio through speakers. Without that, the computer could not demonstrate that it fulfilled any given commands.
Computers are amazing machines, but every request that we ask them to fulfill must compute and go through all three basic stages of the computing process at the very least. So the next time you make a phone call or type that paper on relativity, remember how much goes into completing a task we find as simple as pushing buttons.
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