In my days as a computer consultant, I've had to explain computing concepts to people, all sorts of people, on all levels of geekdom.

Most of the time, I'm not dealing with geeks. In order to explain RAM to an 80-year-old, and what it means to them as the user, I've had to get creative, for example. It's not because older people are stupid and incapable of grasping complex concepts--on the contrary, I find older people are willing to listen to explanations of things more than younger people are. It's a patience thing.

The problem is that computers are rather esoteric, abstract things that really make no sense if you don't use them often. That sounds stupid, but think about it:

"My taxes are in RAM?" On the surface, you're talking about two different things: one, your non-physical (but seemingly physical and tangible) tax forms (in the form of electronic documents); and two, the actual RAM chips (and then, what that means in abstract "here's how much available memory your applications have to work with" terms).

Here, then, I present to you a short list of the analogy(ies) I use to explain computers so anyone can understand things, on at least some general level. Some of the things are certainly more elaborate, and have been perhaps simplified a little too much on some corners, but it's all extensible and augmentable to each user's geek (or non-geek) level.

Enter the kitchen, where everything about a computer can be explained. Why a kitchen? Because we all have one, have always had one, and have understood how it's worked since we can first remember being in one.

Yay.

The Kitchen Computer:

Hard disk drive - Imagine the refrigerator, drawers, and cabinets in your kitchen. These are where you store your leftover dinners, milk, meats, utensils, bowls, cups, etc., right? Just like storing food in the refigerator, and your plates in the cabinet, you store your files and programs in the hard disk drive.

RAM - This can be explained very easily and quickly if you equate it to the kitchen counter: This is where you actually do your work. You get your food and utensils and work on the counter to make dinner. The more counterspace you have, the more stuff you can do at once. When you're done cooking, you clear the counter and come back at dinner to work more. You store the stuff you cook in the fridge (HDD).

The processor - I cover a few CPU concepts with the use of the oven. It cooks the food, like a processor computes code, and you can have more than one in your kitchen. (The more ovens you have, the more things you can cook at once!) You can turn the oven up to 400 degrees (overclocking tangent), so things will cook faster, but you'll generate more heat and use more power. You might also catch something on fire (your food, the house, etc.) if it's turned up too high (this would equate to a system crash, in this case). It's a trade-off:

Case design/airflow/computer fans and cooling - A branch of the oven/CPU analogy. With a lot of heat from big ovens or multiple ovens, you have to make sure air flows well inside the kitchen, or you'll sweat to death. Turn on a ceiling fan or an air conditioner to help, and keep the doors (case venting design) open!

Applications vs. non-application files (documents): Your applications are just like your utensils (knives, wooden spoons, strainers, egg beaters--anything you use to work on your food), in that they're used to work on the food. The food(s) in your kitchen can be compared directly to the documents (non-application files) on the hard disk drive. Some kinds of foods can be worked on by more than one utensil, just like a .txt file can be opened by TextEdit, vi, BBEdit, NotePad, or even a Web browser.

Folders and directories - Inside your fridge and cabinets, you have shelves and drawers in which you organize your stuff, right? Directories (folders) work the same way: On your hard disk drive, you have folders that you use to sort your programs and documents. "Cabinets contain shelves which contain bowls and food. Hard disk drives contain directories (folders) which contain programs and documents, like word processing files and spreadsheets."

Input/Output as a general concept - Imagine you go get groceries and bring them into the kitchen. You make dinner from the groceries, and walk out of the kitchen with a nice turkey dinner (or tofurkey, if you don't eat things with faces). This is basic I/O in action! In go groceries, out comes dinner!

Multithreading - Imagine having two racks in a single oven. You can cook two things at once in that oven. However, the extra rack doesn't increase the amount of things you can put in there at once.

Multitasking - What if you had to wait for the chicken in the oven to finish cooking before you could start boiling the pasta for your chicken parmigana? With good multitasking, you can start the chicken and then go start the pasta. Then, of course, you can go read a magazine while you wait. ;-)

Viruses and anti-virus software - One word: E.Coli. Let's say you borrow your friend's butcher knife, and even though you can't see it, there's a strain of the E.Coli virus on it. You make dinner with the knife, and suddenly, your food is infected! Now you're sick, too! Eek! You should have washed the knife first in the sink, just like you'd run anti-virus software on something you got from someone in, say, an e-mail attachment. Kitchens designed by the Microsoft Interior Design Co. tend to breed and spread infection more than other kinds of kitchens, so be sure to make good use of the sink in those kitchens! ;-)

The user - You! That's right, you're the user in the kitchen! You're telling the oven what to do, you're looking for food in the fridge, and you're working with the utensils on the counter!

Multi-user operating systems - Who says you can't have two people doing two separate things in the kitchen at once? Some kitchens are designed to accomodate this, some sorta are, and some simply aren't.

That's all I've jotted down for now. I'll add to it as ... well ... as I add to it. Check back occasionally, as there's plenty of stuff I haven't put down yet, and drop me some suggestions for more stuff if you feel inclined!

Contact: org dot bungie at mikey-san

Permission for use: This document may be distributed freely (free as in beer and speech) via any means, at no charge. Modify it if you like, but link back to and credit the original source (me)! ©2003 Michael Watson and all contributors: