Modern electronic equipment and information systems, such as digital cameras and computers, rely upon the binary number system to process and communicate information. This is a positional numeric system which uses two as a base, as opposed to the widely understood decimal system which uses the more familiar base ten. The principal advantage of the binary system is that it employs only two different symbols, ie 1 and 0. It is therefore convenient when describing bi-stable or two-state systems with only "on" and "off", or "go" and "no go" states. Transistor-based integrated devices therefore typically accept and output data as short pulses that switch instantaneously between two voltages such as 1volt and 4 volts.
COUNTING USING THE BINARY SYSTEM | |||
Decimal | 8-bit Binary | Decimal | 8-bit Binary |
1 | 1 | 11 | 1011 |
2 | 10 | 12 | 1100 |
3 | 11 | 13 | 1101 |
4 | 100 | 14 | 1110 |
5 | 101 | 15 | 1111 |
6 | 110 | 16 | 10000 |
7 | 111 | 17 | 10001 |
8 | 1000 | 18 | 10010 |
9 | 1001 | 19 | 10011 |
10 | 1010 | 20 | 10100 |