BINARY
BINARY
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How Do We Get from Text and Pictures to Binary?
How Do We Get from Text and Pictures to Binary?
Before we can turn things into binary, we need to understand how they work in our normal number system, called denary or base 10. That’s the system we use every day, which goes from 0 to 9.
Once we know how to represent things in denary, we can convert those numbers into binary. That’s how a computer can store something as complex as a photo using only 1s and 0s!
All the work in a computer—like solving problems or running apps—happens in a part called the CPU (Central Processing Unit).
THe CPU does all the processing or 'thinking' of the computer.
It uses transistors to do this by flipping them on or off (1 or 0).
That’s binary in action!
The animation on the right shows how the numbers 1 to 15 are represented in binary. We already know that to represent 15 combinations, we need 4 switches and you can see the 4 switches shown here.
In Computing, each switch is known as a BIT.
8 BIT BINARY
8 BIT BINARY
To convert from a binary number to a denary number we use these place values.
In the animation above you can see that if there is a 1 in position 8 and a 1 in position 1, this gives the denary value 9 because we add 8+1.
To convert from a denary number to a binary number we use a similar method.
BINARY - A SUMMARY
BINARY - A SUMMARY
Computers only understand binary (0s and 1s) because they use electronic switches called transistors.
Everything—text, pictures, sound—must be converted into binary for the computer to process and store it.
The smallest unit of binary data is a bit.
8 bits make a byte.
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