THENARRATION

How Computers Work

You use a phone and a laptop all day, and nobody has shown you what is inside. One part at a time, from a single switch to the phone in your hand, in plain words.

5 series25 episodesComing soon

01

Semiconductors

5 filmsComing soon

What a chip is made of, which is switches, billions of them, and how and where those switches are made.

02

Processors

5 filmsComing soon

The central processing unit: what it does with a program, one step at a time, and what the figures on a laptop's box mean.

03

Graphics Processors

5 filmsComing soon

The GPU: why a chip with thousands of small cores draws every frame of a game, and why the same kind of chip now runs AI.

04

Memory and Storage

5 filmsComing soon

Where a computer keeps what it is working on, where it keeps everything else, how a photo becomes cells of charge, and why storage wears out.

05

Smartphones

5 filmsComing soon

The computer in your pocket: one chip that holds the whole computer, the glass that feels a finger, the camera, the battery, and the radio that reaches a tower.