How do you inscribe info. into a piece of metal?

[Crammitgandy]

How is it that you can "program" a piece of metal, such as a chip or board? [*(] I wish I knew! Is there a series of lines and dashes that do that? I'm completely baffled as to how someone gets a piece of metal to read another piece of metal and makes it into a working machine! [:(] [g)] [?] [8)] What is the basic mechanism at the base of all this that drives a computer or any other form of computer-based technology? What is the process that brings this all to life?

[FZ+]

It's all thanks to the glories of quantum mechanics in play in a semiconductor, allowing you to make what is essentially a load of switches work together.

[LURCH]

But it's important to realise that the "switches" mentioned are not physical or mechanical switches in the normal sense. They are peaks of magnetic fields in the metal. There's a good explanation at this site (http://computer.howstuffworks.com/hard-disk1.htm).

I understand that by 2010, a one-petabyte (1,000 terrabytes, or 1,000,000 Gig; enough disk-space to store the entire Library of Congress fifty times!) disk should be created, using carbon nanotubes.