Binary system

How computers see the world

There are a number of very common needs for a computer, including the need to store
and view data.

01001100 01100101 01100001 01110010 01101110 01101001 01101110

01100111 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101101 01110000 01110101
01110100 01100101 01110010 00100000 01110011 01100011 01101001
01100101 01101110 01100011 01100101 00100000 01101001 01110011
00100000 01110010 01100101 01100001 01101100 01101100 01111001
00100000 01100110 01110101 01101110 00100001

Computers use electrical signals that are on or off, so they have to see everything as a
series of binary 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.
Converting from binary to decimal

Understanding decimal system

People use the decimal number system in their day-to-day lives. This system has 10
digits that we can use: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9.

The value of each place value is calculated by multiplying by 10 (ie by the power of 10).
The first few place values look like this:

Thousands Hundreds Tens Units

(1000s) (100s) (10s) (1s)

Working out the value of 1024

Thousands (1000s) Hundreds (100s) Tens (10s) Units (1s)

1 0 2 4

1 × 1000 + 0 × 100 + 2 × 10 + 4×1

Converting from binary to decimal

To convert a binary number to decimal, start by writing out the binary place values. In
decimal, the place values are 1, 10, 100, 1000, etc – each place value is 10 times
bigger than the last. In binary, each place value is 2 times bigger than the last (ie
increased by the power of 2). The first few binary place values look like this:

128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1

Working out the value of 1010 1000:

128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1

1 0 1 0 1 0 0 0

1×128 + 0×64 + 1×32 + 0×16 + 1×8 + 0×4 + 0×2 + 0×1

128 + 0+ 32 + 0+ 8+ 0+ 0+ 0
So 1010 1000 in binary is equal to 168 in decimal.

Converting Decimal into Binary

There is a very simple method to convert a decimal number into a binary number. Let’s
take the number 199.

Start by writing out the first few binary place values (128, 64, 32, 16, 8, 4, 2, 1).

128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1

Start at the far left point and say “Can 128 be taken away from 199?”. If it can, do
that.

199 – 128 = 71. Because 128 could be taken off, put a 1 in the ‘128’ place value
column:

128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1

Now repeat for 64: 71 – 64 = 7

128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1

1 1

And again for 32: 7 – 32 won’t work, so put a 0 in that place value column.

128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1

1 1 0

Try again for 16: 7 – 16 won’t work, so add a 0 to that place value column.

128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1

1 1 0 0

Next is 8: 7 – 8 won’t work. Add a 0 to the ‘8’ place value column.

128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1

1 1 0 0 0

Try again for 4: 7 – 4 = 3, so add a 1 to the ‘4’ place value column.
 128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1

1 1 0 0 0 1

Next try 2: 3 – 2 = 1, so add a 1 to the ‘2’ place value column.

128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1

1 1 0 0 0 1 1

And finally, 1: 1 – 1 = 0 – add a 1 to the ‘1’ place value column.

128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1

1 1 0 0 0 1 1 1

This means that 199 as a binary number is 1100 0111.

Note that binary numbers are usually written in blocks of four, separated by a space (eg
0111 1011). In decimal, numbers are often written in blocks of three (eg 6 428 721).

Adding binary

When two numbers are added together in denary, we take the first number, add the
second number to it and get an answer. For example, 1 + 2 = 3.

When we add two binary numbers together the process is different.

There are four rules that need to be followed when adding two binary numbers. These
are:

 0+0=0
 1+0=1
 1 + 1 = 10 (binary for 2)
 1 + 1 + 1 = 11 (binary for 3)
Example

Let’s try adding together two binary numbers: 0101 0011 and 0111 0110.

To get to the answer, use the following method: