Why computer uses 0s and 1s? | StrawHat Hackers

Introduction

why computers understands binary only?

During my 10th vacation, I had a doubt: why do computers only use 0s and 1s? If we can teach computers these binary digits, why not teach them English alphabets? It seemed like it would make it easier to instruct computers and easier for us to code. So, I wondered, why don’t people do that? At that time, I had very little knowledge about computers, and the Indian education system was more bookish. My previous teachers were also not very helpful, so I asked my computer science teacher the same question. Unfortunately, she got stuck. About a year and a half later, as I delved deeper into coding and computer science, I came across the same question again. This time, with the right resources, I easily understood the answer.

In-Depth

The answer is actually quite simple: computers are electronic devices and an electronic device only understands “Power On” and “Power Off,” which are represented by 1s and 0s, respectively. Before high-level programming languages and assembly languages were developed, we used binary to code computers. If you imagine coding in binary, you’ll understand the problem it presents. Like the doubt I once had, it’s not just about teaching the computer 0s and 1s there are two states involved, and we manipulate these states to make the computer do what we want.

Over time, people realized the difficulties of working with low-level programming languages like machine language and assembly language, as they are complex and time-consuming. This led to the development of high-level programming languages, which are more closely related to our everyday language. Code written in high-level languages can be converted into machine code using an interpreter or a compiler, which handles the conversion process.

This is why computers use 0s and 1s.

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