Minecraft wiki entry for Redstone_computers, associated text: Control Unit (CU) will fetch instructions from the instruction ROM (for other computers, instructions can be changed and therefore is RAM. For our case, we are running a fixed program and do not need to change the instructions. This simplifies the process entirely and the instruction is Read-Only Memory (ROM)). Inside the CU, it will then decode the instruction, which is normally a number, into a sensible action. It will then perform that action and if the instruction requires, store the result into the RAM. It communicates with the RAM through the control bus and receives flags from the ALU. It can also ask the ALU to perform actions on data it sends to the ALU (e.g. addition). To communicate with the RAM, for example, one wire could tell the RAM to set the byte (the location of it is specified through the third, address bus) to the value to the data sent to it by the CU through the second, data bus.