Linked Questions
10 questions linked to/from Why Do Computers Use the Binary Number System (0,1)?
5
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Could a standardized ternary system be more efficient than the binary system? [duplicate]
Could a standardized ternary (base-3) system be more efficient than the binary (base-2) system? Binary is efficient for processing using logic gates, but can be bulky when using for file storage or ...
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Why do computers use binary, instead of ternary, or some other logic system? [duplicate]
In binary a unit (bit), can store 2 separate values.
if you have ternary, then a unit can store 3 separate values.
why then don't computers use higher bases, for example in ternary you could have 3 ...
- 11
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Why the alphabet of the digital information is composed of 2 elements? [duplicate]
please don't offer an answer about "it's an electronic thing" or something like that, just keep reading.
I don't understand why we use a dictionary, a lexicon, with just 2 elements to express the ...
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Would there be any advantage to using transitors of more than two states? [duplicate]
Binary is the result of using the simplest possible building blocks to hold memory, transistors, entities that can be switched between two states, on or off. We took that idea and ran with it, and it ...
- 121
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How can one byte hold 256 possibilities?
Forgive this seemingly "troll-ish" question, but I must lack the ability to understand how one byte (two nibbles, eight bits, however you wish to describe it) can hold 256 different states, ...
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Using base 80 for compressing files
I want to compress file size through making my own numbering system which is 80-based number, I do really want to know whether this even possible ? I learnt that Hexadecimal uses symbols like A, B, C, ...
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Why ternary computers like Setun didn't catch on?
Why ternary computers like Setun didn't become popular despite being cheaper and more reliable than binary computers, and also having important computational advantages? We could have had cheaper ...
- 21
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2
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Fundamental motivation behind the use of bits and binary representation
This is a naive question, but what makes binary representation special from a theoretical standpoint and from the standpoint of information theory?
If for technical reasons building ternary computers ...
- 221
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Why is everything in computer science a power of $2$? [duplicate]
I have noticed this strange thing.All things related to Computers come in values which are powers of $2$.For eg. Rams come in $2,4,8$ or $16$ GB,pendrives and memory cards also come in similar values....
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How storage affect if we use tertiary language? [duplicate]
as we uses binary language in all the computer systems around us which consist of 0s and 1s (Off and On) bits. Let assume that someone is developing a computer system based on tertiary system -1, 0, 1 ...
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