# Binary

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oh is that so?

then a Burst nibbler or 7 segment LED/LCD displays no longer exist either?

4-bit codes like natural BCDs are very important.

Maybe what he meant to say was that the word nibble is not very popular.

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Never heard it called a nibble, but the 4-bit construct is very useful and I use it quite a bit. Just my 2 cents

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Burst nibblers or Nibble copiers get around built in copy problems where part of the code is executed and stops the copy, when split into nibbles instead of bytes, this code is unreadable and so itll just copy it verbatim, bit for bit, ignoring the actual data content

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• 2 weeks later...

How can binary be used to make letters, spaces, and punctuation marks? And how can binary be used for computers to store data such as pictures and images?

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As allready mentioned the binary system is just a way to label the (natural) numbers. Now give each letter a number and you can store texts by storing the according numbers. Same for pictures: Give each color a number and store the numbers corresponding to the colors.

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.... The idea of binary numbers start with on and off disposal of electricity.

thats why we use binary code, because is the easiest and elecronicaly posible way of sorting information.

For example the first modems used codes like manchester diferential or things like that to send info... and it was binary, morse code, could be considered some sort fo binary coding... etc..

In response to noz92.

There is a table of 256 characters in most computers is the set of the ASCII code, so... the display in computer gets the number and display the ascii code.

The images are something like this

in a 256 colors display the info is stored and interpreted something like this.

ASM rx

or

00000000b|0000000b ( binary)

so in a bmp like file the pixels would be stored 8 by 8 (binaries numbers) for xy positions in order.

and well the first 2 ff are the color and the other 2 ff the position

plus an interruption (something that goes in or out of your computers such as kerboards printerts etc...)

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How can binary be used to make letters, spaces, and punctuation marks? And how can binary be used for computers to store data such as pictures and images?

it might be helpful to think of each letter or punctuation mark, being represented much in the same way that Morse Code is, but instead of dots and dashes, its Zeros and Ones instead.

as for pictures, have you ever looked really closely at news paper pictures and how the picture is made up of little dots. that`s just the same as for a computer. read along each line and each dot has a color code and a position code (stored in Binary).

this is simplified, but fits just the same

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yeah. the fact is that on computers everything is binary... everything is 1 or 0... everything is on or off.

(apparently, or should i say approximately) there are approaching 42million transistors inside computer. now ive got a motherboard on the floor behind me and it doesnt look like there are 42,000,000 of anything... but at the same time there obviously must be a lot (hundreds of thousands if not millions) for the computer to work.

(transistors work by the most simple on/off status.)

http://www.sosu.edu/st/math/courses/algsci/projects/Exponentials/cputransistors.htm

suggests that my P4 computer will have 42m transistors in it, whereas the one on the floor behind me would only have a few thousand.

.... just to add, they use special transistors, not normal ones like you would use on your circuits which you build! so dont go looking for the 3 legged silver things! they use special smaller possibly more accurate ones.

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oh yeah, and the point of that was to say that transistors work by on/off electrical signals.... hence:

on/off = 1/0 = binary = most basic part of a computer's insides

basically the 1 and 0 represent;

1 (or on) current in the computer (completing a circuit)

and

0 represent off (or no current flowing) so open circuit.

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1/0= binary digit or Bit

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then a Burst nibbler or 7 segment LED/LCD displays no longer exist either?

soz YT, just saw this! i meant that no one reffers to nibbles in computery terms. like people say bit... byte. not bit... nibble... byte.

i didnt mean they dont exist, i was just saying that in counting from bits... terrabytes, one would not normally include nibbles, i wasnt implying they werent there!

and just to make it clear what ed84c said... thats a 1 or a 0 (by itself - one or the other); is one bit (or one binary digit).

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the term Nibble is still used today, ask someone that programs in Machine Code or MIDI too

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if you search google, theres loads of tables for ascii/binary code conversions. eg for a space the ascii number for it is 32 and 32 in binary is 00100000.

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