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| Authored by: Ian Al on Monday, January 14 2013 @ 11:58 AM EST |
We have the idea of streams of digital values flowing down the wires of
computers, in our heads. It's true for long lines like telephone and telegraph,
but wrong for a computer.
In the computer and the associated short cables like SATA, PATA, USB and HDMI
there are no streams of ones and noughts.
For the computer motherboard and the cables to peripherals there is a minuscule
delay while the electrical charge at the output of a logical gate appears at the
input of the next logical gate due to the capacitance and inductance of the
connecting circuit (electrical driver to driver, for cable connections).
However, the computer and cables are clocked such that the delay is
insignificant compared to the signal timing.
The speed of the motherboard circuitry is low enough that the motherboard wiring
busses present the memory charge signs to the processor effectively the moment
they are logically clocked to the output port of the memory and vice verse.
Physics tells us there is a delay, but the motherboard works slowly enough that
the delay is of no consequence. This is also true for parallel and 'serial'
connections between motherboard and hard drive.
Software is written text that will, after processing, generate the electrical
charge signs in the motherboard components and in the hard drive.
There are only charge signs in a computer. Even when a software writer 'writes'
software on a computer, the typed characters are immediately converted to sets
of charge signs.
The typed characters could never get to the memory, unless the keyboard
converted them into charge sign sets ('keycodes', although the system may
translate the actual sign sets from the keyboard electronics into standard
system values). We see documents presented to us as glyphs on the screen and we
see signs in the computer presented as hexadecimal values represented by glyphs,
but this is not what is inside of the computer, it is merely a representation.
The source code (as a bunch of charge signs) is compiled (manipulated by the
processor) into another bunch of charge signs that can be clocked from memory to
the processor data port logical circuitry instantaneously, but in the correct
sequence, for 'execution'.
So, software is not interpreted into streams of ones and noughts. The keyboard
converts every key depressed, immediately, into a charge sign set. It's just
that some files of charge sign sets can be manipulated (compiled) into
'executable' charge sign sets (aka, binary files).
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Regards
Ian Al
Software Patents: It's the disclosed functions in the patent, stupid![ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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