need help.. bits bytes hardware level

[Lidve]

hi there can someone give me some explanation or article/book
on how bits/bytes/memory etc work on hardware level

i mean what exactly are they? transistors? how they save "data" and read from it?

i am sorry if i dont make any sense and if questions are too stupid, but i want to learn more about that and cant happen to find any info (only find same thing over and over again talking about bits and bytes on "software" level)

other info i find is too complex

 

[WhiningKhan]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_memory

 

[Davros]

how about this
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/ram.htm

an analogy would be ram is sorta like a spreadsheet with each cell containing either a zero or 1 (or a charge or no charge)

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/bytes.htm
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/search.php?terms=capacitors

there is also a working cpu created in minecraft that may help you visualise whats going on

minecraft alu (arithmetic logic unit)
http://boingboing.net/2010/09/28/working-computer-mad.html

Working 8-bit CPU in Minecraft
http://boingboing.net/2010/11/12/working-8-bit-cpu-in.html

 

[Lidve]

thanks a bunch guys!
that minecraft video helped me visualize it even better !

and guy from minecraft video recommended a book called "The Elements of Computing Systems_ Building a Modern Computer from First Principles" so i will check it out

 

[Davros]

why not get minecraft itself much better than watching the video

 

[Lidve]

yeah that sounds like good idea and btw that book is PERFECT exactly what i was looking for i cant stop reading

 

[Blazkowicz]

i once read an illustrated book named something generic like "what's a computer" or "the computer", from year 1980 or 1976 or such, french made I believe. you know, the kind of scientific book for children that is well detailed, straightforward, sober and colorful, not talking down i.e. better than magazines for grown up adults.

the only oddity is the CPU being pictured as a physical separate box. it introduces all the concepts of cpu, ram, program, i/o and immediately covers memory addressing, pointers, machine code, character encoding, loops, control flow ; none of it is outdated, as it's presented in an architecture independant manner.

great considering back then no one had ever seen a computer.

there's a bit stuff on peripherals (printer, punch card, video terminal) and a glimpse of the networked home of the future, where we'll make video calls from the living room, consult an encyplodia on some remote computer etc.

 

[Lidve]

i would love to find such book, thanks for info