Revision 1.8 & 1.9

Question 1

How do computers understand programming language?

Answer 1

Most programming at user level is carried out using languages such as Python, C++ or Java, which are related to human language. However, for a computer to understand the instructions and manipulate the data, it has to be changed to lines of 1s and Os.

When designing new components or problem solving new programs, it may be necessary to read and interpret some of these instructions and understand how to convert one number system to another.

Question 2

What does the computer convert the programming language

Answer 2

These are decimal, which humans work with, binary which the computer uses, and hexadecimal, which is used to express groups of binary digits (hexadecimal means sixteen bits or two bytes) as program instructions strings of text characters. These allow the human programmer to more quickly and accurately read the information provided.

Question 3

What are Binary, hexadecimal, decimal?

Answer 3

For base 10 (decimal), the units are 0 to 9.
For base 2 (binary) the units are 0 to 1.
For base 16 (hexadecimal) we can only use a single character. Numbers of 10 and over are changed to letters and so, for base 16, the units are 0 to 9 and A to F, up to 16.
The position of a decimal number in a line of digits denotes its value. The further to the left, the higher the value.