Computers? What are they?

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Are there any other individuals on this site who are mere foetuses to information technology and constantly lost by references to computer software.

Help! Digital Cameras make sense, computers are like the world: bloody complex

Hell, I write software, build my own computers, work with them all day every day and I still don't know what's going on half the time.

I have always wondered what computers will be like in 100 years because they can't possibly be as bad as they are now. I'm not sure what needs to be done though.

So are you saying that you DO understand them or that they are unpredictable and therefore un-understandable



Perhaps a Cyborg Computer would be a better option (See Donna Haraway, "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century," in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York; Routledge, 1991) [/quote]

I understand computers as far as I need to to use one, but I'd like to understand them more.

I feel as though I missed an important bit of basic computer knowledge somewhere along the way. I understood what was going on when I was about 14 - computers made sense to me then, but now I get confused. I'm only 24, it can't be senile dementia!

I tend to be more interested in hardware and computer engineering than software though, although I used to enjoy writing BASIC programs for my ZX Spectrum.

I have a similar situation, it feels like i am slowly learning but whenever someone refers to anything i am sure that all i know are the 'foetal' basics.

I find the Hardware even more confusing than the software and i have the half open/broken/explored computers to prove it.

NB: just a little tip; don't open up a computer if you are not sure how to fix it again or the instructions are in Japanese/German and you can't speak the language (not that learning Java would be an easier )

Computers are understandable in so much as anything that obeys an understandable set of rules is. Computers obey the laws of physics, physics are understandable, therefore computers are understandable.

But my point is that it is not necessary or even desired to understand everything about them. Otherwise technology would not advance because our minds are limited resources which causes us to limit our skill sets. This goes for any tool that we use not just computers. It is only necessary to know how to use the tool, you don't necessarily need to know how it works. That frees up your time to accomplish other goals.

If everyone had to understand and make their own tools then we would all still be spending all our time trying to survive and get food.

Great Responce; i have no answer, perhaps now i will stop trying to understand them and go and practice using them.

thanks coded