Human beings use a 10 based or decimal number system, possibly because we have tens fingers and ten toes. Computers use a 2 based or binary system because it can be represented easily in hardware by on-off, open-closed, charged-uncharged states. For example a capacitor in RAM memory can be charged or not charged. A charged state represents a 1 and an uncharged (or not fully charged) state represents a 0. Likewise data stored on a hard disk at the molecular level can be magnetically aligned in one pattern or its opposite. Each pattern represents a 1 or 0.

Decimal numbers can be converted to binary numbers, and vice-versa. This is essential as humans work in decimals and computers work in binary. The pages in this menu look at how to use each system and how they relate to each other. A look is also taken at the octal (base 8) and hexadecimal (base 16) systems.

Additional resources

The following link is to a tutorial that contains excellent information on number representation: Number representation