Understanding Computers, Smartphones and the Internet
By Ernie Dainow
5/5
()
Computer Science
Internet
Smartphones
Technology
Artificial Intelligence
Technology & Society
Technological Progress
Information Age
Communication Devices
Future Predictions
Wireless Communication
Revolution in Computing
Computer Architecture
Computer Evolution
Programming
Software Development
Computer Programming
About this ebook
Were you ever curious to know how computers work but were afraid to ask? This book is for people who would like to understand how computers work, without having to learn a lot of technical details. There are clear explanations of hardware, software, the Internet and smartphones, using examples and diagrams that are easy to follow.
Chapter 1 follows step by step how a computer program is developed to solve a simple problem and then shows how the hardware runs the program.
Chapter 2 explains how software works, showing with diagrams how software is constructed with many components and layers.
Chapter 3 explains how the Internet works. It shows how a web browser sends a request for a web page using the HTTP protocol and some of the fundamentals of HTML that the browser uses to display a web page.
Chapter 4 explains how Smartphones work. It covers the underlying hardware and radio technology and shows how a mobile phone connects to a network and transmits voice and data.
While originally intended for people who are not in the computer field, this book is also useful for those taking a coding course or an introductory computer science course. Even people already working in computers will find things of interest in this book.
Ernie Dainow
Ernie Dainow was fascinated with mathematics at an early age. In university he became more interested in how people think and he began graduate work in psychology. The emerging field of using computers to understand the brain by simulating learning and thinking captivated him, culminating in a Master's degree in Artificial Intelligence in Computer Science. Ernie's interests evolved from doing research to building systems. He started working for Univac, the company that had built one of the first commercial computers. This marked the beginning of a long and varied career in the computer field, working on large mainframe computers, personal computers and network systems. His expertise spanned software development for academic and scientific research, business and financial applications, data communications, computer hardware products and the Internet. Ernie never lost his fascination with computers. After he retired he began writing, sharing insights and interesting discoveries that are not widely known or understood outside of the computer field.
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Book preview
Understanding Computers, Smartphones and the Internet - Ernie Dainow
Who is this book for?
Were you ever curious to know how computers work but were afraid to ask? This book is for people who would like to understand how computers work, without having to learn a lot of technical details. There are clear explanations of hardware, software, the Internet and smartphones, using examples and diagrams that are easy to follow.
Chapter 1 follows step by step how a computer program is developed to solve a simple problem and then shows how the hardware runs the program.
Chapter 2 explains how software works, showing with diagrams how software is constructed with many components and layers.
Chapter 3 explains how the Internet works. It shows how a web browser sends a request for a web page using the HTTP protocol and some of the fundamentals of HTML that the browser uses to display a web page.
Chapter 4 explains how Smartphones work. It covers the underlying hardware and radio technology and shows how a mobile phone connects to a network and transmits voice and data.
While originally intended for people who are not in the computer field, this book is also useful for those taking a coding course or an introductory computer science course. Even people already working in computers will find things of interest in this book.
Ernie Dainow
February 2017
Revised January 2025
All rights reserved © 2016 Ernie Dainow
ISBN: 978-0-9952144-0-8
Contents
Who is this book for?
1. What is a Computer?
Basic computer architecture
Start with a problem
Write a program for a solution
Machine Code
Machine Instruction Set
How are machine instructions designed?
Integrated Circuits
Moore’s Law
The Future
2. How Does Software Work?
Computer Languages
Databases
The Layers of Software
Software Development
Software Applications
3. How Does the Internet Work?
What is a Network?
What is the Internet?
How does the Internet work?
What is the Web and how does it work?
HTML (HyperText Markup Language)
Other Protocols
What is the Domain Name System (DNS)?
How is the Internet managed?
4. How Do Smartphones Work?
What is a Smartphone?
Smartphone Hardware
The Network Components
How does radio work?
Smartphone Software
The Cellular Phone Network
Appendix 1. CalculateTax Program
Appendix 2. Binary Numbers, Bits and Bytes
Appendix 3. Internet Routing
Appendix 4. How Does Email Work?
About the Author
1. What is a Computer?
In the context of this book, the word computer
can refer to many different sorts of devices. Familiar computers are laptops, desktops and mainframe computers used in large organizations. But computers are found in many other places, such as smartphones, tablets, video game consoles, telephone networks, automobiles, medical equipment, television broadcasting and factories (to name a few). All these computers are fundamentally the same. They are just different sizes and use specialized hardware and software. The description of computers in this book applies to all of these devices.
Basic computer architecture
This diagram is a high-level view of a computer that shows the five main components.
Figure 1-1. Basic computer architecture
Hardware refers to all the physical components in a computer – the CPU (Central Processing Unit), memory chips, disk storage, and various input and output devices.
Software refers to programs that are run on the computer. They are soft
because they can be changed without having to modify any of the hardware, which is much more time consuming and expensive.
A special software component is the Operating System (OS) that controls the computer hardware. A computer generally can’t do anything without an OS. When you power on a computer, one of the first things it does is copy the OS from files in Storage into Memory so that they can run in the CPU. Some of the familiar operating systems in use today are Microsoft Windows for PCs, Linux for servers, and Apple iOS or Google Android for smartphones. Once the OS is running, you can then run applications (usually called apps on smartphones), such as a web browser, a text messaging app or a game.
Computer hardware is built by assembling electronic components onto one or more printed circuit boards. The boards have sockets for the components and wired lines that make the necessary electrical connections between them. There are small basic components such as diodes, resistors, capacitors and transistors as well as larger silicon chips, such as memory chips and a CPU chip (marked Amlogic in the figure).
Figure 1-2. Printed Circuit Board
CPU is the Central Processing Unit. This is the brain of the computer. It controls the operations in all the other components and it makes all the decisions. Many computers use an Intel processor chip for the CPU. Smartphones and tablets use a variety of smaller CPU chips.
The CPU generally needs two things: a program (code) and data.
A program, or application, is the list of instructions that tells the computer what to do.
Data is information that a program processes, typically information provided from an Input device or from a file in Storage.
All computations done by a computer can only be done on data that is in a register
in the CPU. These registers are very expensive to build so even large computers do not have very many.
Input includes such familiar devices as a keyboard, mouse or a touchscreen.
Output is where the computer’s results are sent. On a PC or mobile phone, this is typically your display screen. But it can also be a printer or a network, like the Internet. A network can also be an input device.
Storage is where programs and data are saved. Data includes documents created by different programs, music files, video files and system files. Storage for many years was a hard disk drive but is now generally an SSD (solid state drive), a storage device that uses flash memory. On computers you generally need to manage Storage to create and delete folders and files and copy files from one folder to another. Smartphone apps generally manage Storage automatically and you rarely need to do very much file management.