Start here · Essential guide
How Computers Work: A Plain-Language Guide Through History
A non-technical map of a computer's main parts, from binary switches to memory, processors and software, and roughly when each idea arrived in history.
Reference Shelf
How Computers Work
The core ideas inside a computer, explained through the history of how they developed.
Analog and Digital Computers Compared
Compare analog computers, which model quantities continuously, with digital machines that count in steps, and see why digital designs came to dominate.
Binary Numbers and Why Computers Use Them
Learn how base-two counting works, how to read a binary number, and why two-state switches made binary the natural choice for electronic machines.
Computer Memory Explained: From Delay Lines to Chips
Follow the history of main memory, from delay lines and cathode-ray tubes to magnetic cores and semiconductor chips, and why each form was replaced.
How Computers Store Text: From Telegraph Codes to Unicode
See how letters became numbers, from Morse and Baudot telegraph codes through ASCII and EBCDIC to Unicode, and why so many standards competed along the way.
Logic Gates: The Building Blocks of Computation
See how AND, OR and NOT gates turn simple on-off decisions into addition and control, and how relays, tubes and transistors each built them.
Relational Databases Explained Historically
Learn how data moved from separate files to linked tables, from Edgar Codd's 1970 relational model to SQL, and what the approach does well and poorly.
The Stored Program Idea in Plain Terms
Why keeping instructions in memory beside data mattered, how the stored-program concept emerged in the 1940s, and why credit for it is shared.
What a Central Processing Unit Does
A plain-language look at the CPU's fetch, decode and execute cycle, the parts inside it, and how it shrank from cabinets of tubes to a single chip.
Related topics
More in reference shelf
Computing by Decade A decade-by-decade tour of what computing looked like and what changed. Preserving Computing History How old machines, software and data are saved, restored and kept readable. Myths and Misconceptions Popular stories about computing history, checked against what is known. Glossary and Word Origins Plain-language explanations of computing terms and where they come from.