So somebody I refer to as "dad" asked me innocently, and very naively, how they actually work. After nearly 20 years of playing and working with the things all day this was my answer.
"...I don't know."
And this being my dad he wasn't looking for the answer "There's a hard drive that stores all your data, and your software is executed in RAM, and when you type in 'www.google.com' the request goes through the network, and there's like routing tables, and then it gets there, and http back." He wanted the layer-by-layer-by-layer answer. 
Don't forget the stack. When a more important job comes up the computer writes a little note to itself about where it was up to and puts it on the stack. The stack cannot be shuffled, it can only be accessed from the top. Might be dozens of unfinished jobs on the stack, but it doesn't get flustered, and everything works out OK.
There's a lesson there somewhere.
What's a computer ?
Is that like my ipad I am using ?
We had computers at school I recall.
Commodore 64 I think.
Must be a Holden v Ford thing 
My answer these days, is something like "I don't work in that area of computers. I used to know about them, but now you probably know more about them than I do". It works like a charm and has dropped support calls to almost none
They are generally fuelled by apples to make them work properly but there are some that work with little windows which can also be broken which cause crashes and leave shattered glass everywhere.This allows bad people in to steal things and generally drive people crazy.They thought the window would show a grand vista but was really just smoke and mirrors.
I am terribly disappointed - actually no, my own ego was buoyed by it - when a geek didn't know an I.C was all about mini switches being on or off and that represents zeros and ones.
I am a computer retard and I knew that.
Shame on you 'panda. 
They complete mathematical operations using
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boolean_logic
they do this by using a large array of
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic_gates
That work together to form
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arithmetic_logic_unit
that is then coupled with a
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_unit
to form a
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Processing_Unit
that works to complete a program given to it by a programmer.
There's little people in there. Lots and lots of them.
It's the little things that count.
More complex tasks are outsourced to India which is why they take longer.
that is actually quite interesting the people get to the point and design things that are beyond comprehension.
Same with the science at top level hard to imagine that there is still understanding all these.
If you look at computer source code it seems that nobody really wish to spent whole life to have a slightest glimpse sense of that, then new generation comes and pickup everything in no time at all, even to improve on that...
Here's maybe the best description I could find (and I'm not even entirely sure how I came across it).
accounts.google.com/ServiceLogin?passive=1209600&osid=1&continue=https://plus.google.com/112218872649456413744/posts/dfydM2Cnepe&followup=https://plus.google.com/112218872649456413744/posts/dfydM2Cnepe
"A Computer" used to be a job description for a person.
The US forces had women who were good at maths, to calculate all things mathamatical in the very early days. These "computers" became the first programmers for the one of the first electronic "computers" called the Eniac, around 1946.
The Eniac was lightening fast & could do 385 multiplication operations per second.
Your bog standard graphics card now does over a trillion (million million) multiplication operations per second
Crikey!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ENIAC
My brain is far superior to any computer. Look at images of naked women performing sexual act on a computer screen and you get bored quickly. Look at those same images in your brain and away we go.
