Learning to Count in Binary

We've all seen the stereotypical movie computer person. They watch a screen of binary scroll by, apparently interpeting it and making so much sense of it they only have to glance up every few seconds to figure out whats going on. Not gonna happen.

Binary is a number system, just like Base 10, the number system you or I count in. The difference is just the placement of the numbers. Not to mention, that while our number system has 10 digits (0-9) the base 2 number system only has two digits. These are one and zero.

We've also heard people say "Machine Language" in referance to binary. And its true. Computers talk in numbers, and since a digital computer only interpets two numbers, base two would seem to be the good choice.

In binary, we count right to left as we add up a number to become our number in base 10. Each number, from right to left is worth twice as much as the last one was.

For example, 1 = 1, 10 = 2, 100 = 4, etc. And when the number doesn't go evenly into it, we use two or more ones. Most computers use 8 bit, or number codes for commands.

To illustrate this, we'll be doing a few numbers, just as examples:

5 = 00000101

8 = 00001000

7 = 00000111

etc.

Please note, if you have a number larger than you can do in 8 numbers, you can expand it farther.