Non-nerd's Guide to Computers/motherboard

The Motherboard: From Whence All Connections Came
What exactly IS a motherboard? Let's take a quick example through a figure of speech. Think about mail service. Who delivers and picks up the mail? The mail carrier of course! He or she is given mail and drives around putting someone's mail in its appropriate mailbox, allowing people to communicate, and picks up mail already in the mailbox. The mail carrier is the equivalent of a motherboard. The motherboard is basically a mail carrier which allows all the components of a computer to communicate through exchanging data. The motherboard directs all this data, sending it to the appropriate places to be taken care of. Without a motherboard, computers would be lost, sending letters without an address. Since there is no way for each component to discern where data goes, it would be a mess and would not work.