1s and 0s: the computer language… how the hell does that work?
So it may be well known that computers communicate, calculate, and “think” in a language consisting entirely of 1s and 0s known as binary, but how the
hell do you say “damn” in binary?
Lets start with the fundamental building block of computers, and what is filling
the inside of your laptop: the silicon transistor. Forget the word “silicon” and “transistor,” we can just think of these itsy bitsy sub-microscopic thingys as little
switches, they can be on or off. That’s it, your iPod and PS3 and all the other digital stuff you use everyday is
merely flipping a bunch of switches on and off, but at a rate that is so fast
we can’t conceive how frickin’ fast it is. But how can we represent numbers with these “switches?”
So all we have to represent any information is “on” and “off.” Let’s call the “on” 1 and the “off” 0. Ah, now we are speaking the language binary. But what the shit is binary
again?
First we really shouldn’t think of binary as a language, but a way of representing numbers. The way we
are used to seeing numbers represented is the form called decimal, deci meaning
10 (like the ten digits 0 through 9). So when we start in the ones place holder
and count up from 0:
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Every time we go passed 9 we have to add one to the next place holder, in this
case the ten is the place holder. Right, so we all know how to count, but
binary works exactly the same way, except now we add one to the next
placeholder after we pass 1. Remember all we can use is 0 and 1, so if we were
to count from zero to two in binary it would look like this:
0
1
10
Thus, 10 in binary equals 2 in decimal. If we want to count to three we just add
another 1 to get:
11
Remember all we have is 1s and 0s. Then when we add another 1 to get four, but
now we fill the first place holder and then the second place holder, so we have
to start a third place holder and we have the binary representation of four as:
100
Think of it as our place holders as little apartments in New York, they only
have room for one person instead of nine like the decimal apartments in
Minneapolis, when we try to add a person to that apartment they wont fit and
they have to get another apartment next door. So if we were to count to ten in
binary, it would look like this:
Binary Decimal
0 0
1 1
10 2
11 3
100 4
101 5
110 6
111 7
1000 8
1001 9
1010 10
Now each binary place holder, or bit, is really an electronic switch
(transistor) where each 0 represents a voltage of zero volts and each 1
represents a voltage of around five volts. So here we are, we can use real
electronic switches to represent numbers. Not only that, we can also represent
letters and colors and sounds and video games, but we’ll get to that some other Dinosaurus day.
Now, let’s apply binary to your life, something to be proud of when your parents ask what
you learned today: Damn in binary is “1000100 1100001 1101101 1101110”.
