Number Systems for Computers

• Today’s computers are built from transistors

• Transistor is either off or on

• Need to represent numbers using only off and on

  • two symbols

• off and on can represent the digits 0 and 1

  • A bit can have a value of 0 or 1

• Binary representation

  • weighted positional notation using base 2

1110 = 1*23 + 1*21 + 1*20 = 10112

1110 = 8 + 2 + 1

What is largest number, given 4 bits?

Previous slide

Next slide

Back to first slide

View graphic version