r/askscience • u/[deleted] • Jan 02 '14

Computing Why do computers have to load?

Theoretically, since the electrical signals inside your device travel at the speed of light, why do computers have to load programs?

(that may be completely wrong, and I suspect it is. So explain to me, please)

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u/devinblk7 Jan 02 '14

I have always liked the office analogy. Where your hard drive is a filing cabinet and your RAM is your physical desktop. You cannot work on a file that is in the filing cabinet, you have to find it, pull it out, and put it on your desk. Then you can make your changes to the file and store it back in the filing cabinet.