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The challenge computer inventors were confronted with was to create an electrical system that could be used as an advanced abacus.
The point is, the computer itself is not really counting. We are the ones who are counting. The computer is a machine consisting of switches. We equate its switch positions with numbers, and we made it so that when we set a switch combo that represents a number, and set it 2 times successively, and then run the computer, that the output will represent the number that results from the addition of the two numbers we initially inserted.
To put it in other words. We created a digital machine that when we set an initial state that represents 2 + 2 and then run it, its new state, based on the same rules we used for representing 2 + 2, will represent the number 4.
The point is, the computer itself is not really counting. We are the ones who are counting. The computer is a machine consisting of switches. We equate its switch positions with numbers, and we made it so that when we set a switch combo that represents a number, and set it 2 times successively, and then run the computer, that the output will represent the number that results from the addition of the two numbers we initially inserted.
To put it in other words. We created a digital machine that when we set an initial state that represents 2 + 2 and then run it, its new state, based on the same rules we used for representing 2 + 2, will represent the number 4.
A computer is absolutely dumb on its own. We simply use it to manipulate mechanical logic to show a logical output from a specific input. The miracle here is that we can enter numbers we can comprehend abstractly into an extremely simple system, and can do calculations with it that our own memory is not able to or not easily able to complete.
The miracle is that we can achieve complex outputs by using a very simplistic mechanic.
In a way, this is also what we get from an abacus, but in automated and much more expanded form.
Thus, a computer is an advanced abacus.
