How computers see the world
There are a number of very common needs for a computer, including the need to store and view Units of information. In computing there can be different data types, including integers, characters and Boolean. Data is often acted on by instructions..
Computers use electrical signals that are on or off, so they have to see everything as a series of A number system that contains two symbols, 0 and 1. Also known as base 2. numbers. This data is represented as a sequence of 1s and 0s (on and off). All data that we want a computer to process needs to be converted into this binary format.
What is binary?
Binary is a number system that only uses two digits: 1 and 0. All information that is processed by a computer is in the form of a sequence of 1s and 0s. Therefore, all data that we want a computer to process needs to be converted into binary.
The binary system is known as a ‘base 2’ system. This is because:
- there are only two digits to select from (1 and 0)
- when using the binary system, data is converted using the power of two.