Binary Numbers and Memory
By: Anthony S. Protho
Tags: Binary, Circuit, Computer Science, Memory, Code

Binary is the bases of the technology we use today, from your favorite stereo to the thing you are reading this off of today. Most things contain a computer, and therefore also contain binary that controls it. “Binary is a base 2 number system invented by Gottfried Leibniz that is made up of only two numbers: 0 and 1.”(Computer Hope). It is the state of high or low voltage that tells our computers what to do.

But it didn’t start off this way. A trip down memory road shows us that binary used to be a much more mechanical operation. Using switches and levers to determine if something was on or off. And it wasn’t the only of it’s kind, with other signal readers reading up to 10 different variety of signals. The problem with base 10 signals, however, was the shortage of power. If the machine was getting an overflow of power or too little, these signals could be easily confused or mixed up. So creating a simple on and off mechanism made it easy to differentiate the given signals. Making binary our first choice of operations.

Then was the creation of logic gates. People were experimenting with different and new ways to solve operations as quickly as possible, and with the creation of boolean algebra by George Boole in the 1840s, technicians, and scientists sought to find better ways to control these logic gates. With operations like and, or, xor, and not, we could now give our circuits the rules we needed to do more advanced operations (storyofmathimatics.com). Many years later creating many of the same operations we use in programming today!

#!python3.7 # defines variables hello and world to True (1) and False (0) hello = True world = False # If hello and world are both True, return True if hello and world: return True # If hello or world are True, return True. This opperation includes # xor which states that if only one is true, then turn on. Which is #different from or which looks for at least one operation to be true elif hello or world: return True # if hello is not the same as world, return True elif hello is not world: return True

This led to the inventions of machines like the IBM100, where you used punch cards to order tasks and operations. The holes in the punch card would determine if the signal was on or off (one or zero), in the 1950s. However, these were again mechanical and had to be repaired almost every day. But without discoveries like these, we might not have the technology we have today. As it shaped our future. (IBM)

Our logic gates became even more complex, with combinations of and, not, and xor gates. Our technology shrank, and the replacement of mechanical parts for electric ones brought forth the creation of the ALU (Arithmetic and Logic Unit), and circuit boards. These used our logic gates, and bits that carried over data. Each one and zero being a bit. Hence why things were called 8-bit and 16-bit, and later called bytes.

It doesn’t make much sense to do so many operations without having a place to store it. So using what’s called a D-Type Flip-Flop circuit, that takes advantage of our logic gates, creates a way to temporarily store data. But this only stores a single byte. So by adding more of these register circuits together, we can hold more data. Thus creating our first RAM (Random Accessing Memory). This memory also needed a clock to interpret new states of on or off. hence why the ‘D’ in D-type Flip-Flop stands for Delay, and why clock circuits were invented (101 Computing).

The ALU, RAM, Clock, all connected threw our circuit board leads to the invention of the heart of our computer, known as the CPU (Component Processing Unit). This Unit was comprised of many built-in instructions that would make use of our ALU and RAM, to run programs. And the amazing part is, this entire process is still comprised of just ones and zeros! The CPU can only fetch, get, encode/decode and execute problems after using addresses, which tell it what, and where to do this in memory. The first CPU created into a single circuit was the first Intel Processor! The 4004 Intel processor! Going an outstanding 740 kilohertz, or 740,000 cycles per second. But despite this speed, it is nothing compared to the technology we have today.

Some people will even overclock their CPU, adjusting the speed of the clock to try and get it to run even faster! But this typically leads to overheating and melts your components. However, on the other side of this is underclocking. This is very useful when your computer wants to go to sleep and can cool off by running slower when you step away from your computer.

But I go off on a tangent. The main importance here is that all these creations and inventions are built off the logic of Binary. It creates a way to run operations must faster than a human, and even store more memory than ever imaginable. We can see this in our Hard drives, SSDs (Solid State Drives), and thumb drives. As it writes and fetches our saved pictures. And it’s still advancing as servers and clouds store our data for us.