On this journey to meet my mathmagician husband on the cusp between the analog and digital worlds I suddenly realized, I am a mother, and, well, my husband is always talking about his computer’s motherboard. There must be common ground somewhere.
“Frank,”I asked my husband, “Why is this computer thingy even called a motherboard?”
Frank said that he wasn’t sure where the name came from, but he does know that it is never called a fatherboard.
Next I asked my technical wizard friend Ed.
Ed said that he wasn’t sure, but that if you add “expansion cards” to the motherboard they are called “daughter cards.”
With no answer to my question, I went back a step. “OK, guys. Just what is a motherboard?” That’s when I got some answers.
Both Frank and Ed told me that another name for the motherboard is the mainboard. The mainboard is a flat, fiberglass component that holds 3 main things: the CPU or central processing unit, the input/output circuitry, and the RAM or random access memory.
The input/output circuitry controls the interaction between input devices such as the mouse and output devices like the monitor. It is called the BIOS for Basic Input/Output System. The hard wired circuitry to the input/output devices or the peripherals is called the BUS.
The BUS takes a binary signal (bits) from the BIOS and sends it out along a route to the peripherals. Signals may travel along, but will only be taken in or “recognized” by the appropriate receiving peripheral. Because of this pattern of carrying signals, off loading them along the way, and picking up new signals it is called the BUS. (A bus? Get it? This is not to be confused, of course, with “bust” even though it resides on the motherboard.)
The “heartbeat” of the personal computer is the processor speed or the clockspeed of the central processing unit (CPU). The CPU has a clock or a device that sends out an electrical pulse at a regular interval to pick up the binary code signal that has been generated by an input device.
The frequency that the clock cycles determines the speed of the processor. For instance the Intel 500 megahertz Pentium processor cycles the input signals 500 million times a second. This is considerably faster than the Pentium processor of 5 years ago which cycled at 90 megahertz or 90 million times per second.
In the real world both of these computers would appear to operate at similar speeds when doing common basic tasks such as word processing. Having a fast-speed processor becomes important when the input data is extensive and complex–such as with streaming video, audio or database operations.
Slower clock speeds like 60 megahertz can only perform about 100 million instructions per second (mips). A Pentium III processor which has a clock speed of 450 megahertz can perform one billion instructions per second. This difference is the number of tasks the processor can do in a short period of time. This would be most noticeable if you are loading up and using a complex graphics program for example.
Now on to the RAM. The RAM (Random Access Memory) is the special short term memory of the computer. It stores information as long as the computer is turned on for a session, and then loses it as soon as the computer is turned off. When the computer is first turned on and “boots up” the tiny bit of ROM (Read Only Memory) which is permanent memory loads the operating system into RAM.
The benefit of having the operating system or any other information in RAM is that it is readily accessible. Information can be retrieved in nanoseconds (superfast!). If the processor has to go to the hard disk to retrieve data it takes milliseconds (sort of fast).
On the other hand RAM memory capacity is small, maybe only 32 megabytes (32 million bytes) while the hard disk can hold vast amounts of data with storage capacities of 8 gigabytes (8 billion bytes) or more.
Now although RAM stands for Random Access Memory, the data in RAM is stored in a very organized fashion. Originally the term, “random,” was used to indicate that the memory was not stored sequentially as it used to be on a tape data storage system. (Back then, the tape had to be reviewed sequentially until the spot where the data was stored was reached.)
RAM allowed organized data to be accessed at any point instantly because the data is on a microchip. Likewise, other data memory or storage devices like the hard disk or CD ROM truly store data in a “random access” fashion.
After learning all of this, I’ve finally found out why this computer thingy is called a motherboard.
In the 1980’s when early pioneer computer hardware gurus were building the first personal computers, they recognized the powerful nature of this main board. This board was designed to hold the wiring to efficiently manage all of the information flowing in and out of the computer. This board had the chips to make complex calculations in nanoseconds. On this board sat incomparable short term memory and the uncanny ability to organize every tidbit of data while appearing to be casually random.
At my house I see these same actions going on everyday.
“Mama said I could have a cookie first.”
“I’m going to tell Mama that you won’t play with me.”
“I’m hungry, Mama. What’s for dinner?”
“Mama, I can only find one sock.”
“Mama, where is my coat?”
It is a tough job keeping those peripherals in order. A tough job that only a mother, I mean, a motherboard can do.
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