Electric appliances and equipment are rarely constructed to accomplish immediately after being plugged into an electrical socket. A simple example of some gadget which operates immediately in this manner are Christmas lights.
Most devices are designed for single, more or less involved tasks or otherwise for multiple functions. For this reason, the execution of the gadget must be controlled, switched on or off, and regulated.
The most simple controlling gadget is the on/off switch. It is so base in fact that we do not even think it a controlling element. The task of a switch is to turn a current on or off, or otherwise to reverse it.
According to some program, involved controlling components are designed to change the intensity of a current. They may regulate various electrical circuits and, in a simple manner, may be programmable. An example of this is a program in an self-operating washing engine which controls the chance and shutting of valves, the movement of the drum to the left or right, the pump, and so on.
There is often a differentiation in the middle of control and regulation. control means that, agreeing to some set schematic, the flow of current may change in distinct circuits (as in our self-operating washing engine example). With regulation, quantities are measured and to which an appliance subsequently reacts. In a refrigerator, a compressor is activated or deactivated agreeing to the internal climatic characteristic of the fridge.
Some control and regulation components consist of electric coils, resistors, diodes, transistors and transformers. These electric components can be found in every electrical and electronic device. Only ten years ago, such components were ten times larger than they are today.
Modern, involved circuits are becoming increasingly smaller and are pressed onto plates. They are made from hundreds and thousands of personel components and are referred to as integrated circuits, Ics, chips or microchips. On an area smaller than 3 cm2, very integrated Lsi (large scale integration) chips consist of more facts than 5,000 transistors.
This miniaturisation has enabled mankind to organize very small but affordable and marvelous electronic devices.
For comparison, we only need to look at the size of the first computers. The old computers were able to handle medium to difficult, numerous tasks but took up many rooms due to their size.
Current can be switched with the help of transistors and other electrical components. With thousands of electronic components, there are an immeasurable amount of options how to switch such components on or off. The language and logic of a computer is based on two states: 1- on, 0- off (0/1; yes/no, true/false).
Thanks to very marvelous computers, very involved regulating equipment can be programmed. Some programs allow a computer to amass taste so that it can react "intelligently" under inevitable situation. Such programmable components are increasingly being located in automobiles, production up for human error and used to avoid accidents.
