Quote:
Originally Posted by inertia
Its one of those things that makes sense but i don't actually know why!
|
Computers use the binary system. It's just a counting system. We use the decimal system. That means there are 10 digits. You can use any system you like to create numbers. If you choose 6, then the counting goes: 0,1,2,3,4,5,... 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15,.... 20, 21, 22, etc. in the system with 6 digits 21 means really 2 * 6 + 1 which would be 13 in the decimal system (1 * 10 + 3). so the first digit represents 1, the second represents 6, the third 36, etc. (just like in our decimal system the first digit represents 1, the second 10, the third 100, etc.)
Computers use the binary system which means they use only 2 digits. so the decimal number 13 would be 1101 (1 * 8 + 1 * 4 + 0 * 2 + 1 * 1).
Maybe you knew that already. The reason why computers use the binary system is that memory uses only 2 states: High voltage and low voltage, which represents 1 and 0. It's just this practical hardware reason that the binary system is used.