“There are 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who don’t.”
Do you get it? If not, then this article is for you! Binary is the basic ‘language’ of computers. Common analogies are on and off switches. In binary, on and off are represented with 1 and 0 respectively.
Computers use bytes to store data. A byte is represented by 8 bits. A bit is a single 0 or 1. The highest number value a byte can go up to is 255. Technically it’s 256 values because 0 is a value which is a power of 2.
For example 0000 0010 is 2. To figure out a value in binary one must multiply each number from right to left by the power of two. This illustration will give a better picture of what I mean.
This is just a basic introduction to what binary is. I hope this helped you in understanding what people mean when they talk about binary. Please leave comments below if you have specific questions about binary you would like me to address.