>Does that mean that you can explain just what makes the computer stop working when you let the magic smoke out of a few chips on the motherboard? < g >

Ed,

Sure I can explain it. The smoke is electrically charged with all 1's. When it is inside the chips the chips use it whenever they need a 1. But if the smoke gets out, then the chips have no more 1's but only 0's so they stop working correctly.