The Technology Lab has been over run by Mice!!

 

 

 

 

 19 February 2008 Mouse notes:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is binary?

Do you think you can write your first name in binary code?

If you write your name in binary code and bring it to the Technology Lab.  You will receive a special Certificate of Achievement and your binary name will be hung in the Technology Lab.

(Don't forget make sure to print your name and classroom number on your paper.  Of course all students, teachers and staff can join in the challenge.)

This is Dr. Computer written in binary code:

01000100 01110010 00101110 00100000

01000011 01101111 01101101 01110000

01110101 01110100 01100101 01110010

 

Binary numbers are used to represent all information in the digital world. They're similar to our decimal system, which uses the digits 0 to 9, except binary uses only 0 and 1.

Binary is handy because now we can easily use something physical to represent numbers. For instance we could use a light. When it's on you know it means '1' and when it's off you know it means '0'.

When we write numbers in decimal, it's the position or place of the number that tells us what its real value is. With 246 for example, the 6 at the end is six ones, the 4 in the middle is four tens and the 2 is two hundreds. Each place or position is 10 times greater than the previous position.

The binary number system also uses place to give value, but as we have only 2 numbers to work with each place or position is only 2 times greater than the one before.

In binary code:

• Decimal number 0 is binary 0
• Decimal number 1 is binary 1

Now it's different:

• Decimal number 2 is binary 10 (one two and no ones)and you don't say "ten" you say "one zero" 
• Decimal number 3 is binary 11 (one two and one one) you say " one one"
• Decimal number 4 is binary 100 (one four, no twos and no ones) you say "one zero zero"
• Decimal number 5 is binary 101 (one four, no twos and one one) you say " one zero one"

Using light to send binary

Say we wanted to send decimal number 5 which is 101 in binary. We take each digit one at a time: start with the light on for '1', turn it off for '0' and back on again for the last '1'.

We convert each number to binary, and in computers we send it down an optic fibre with a laser, then convert it back. Computers can switch a laser beam on and off very fast, so we can send lots and lots of numbers at an incredible speed.  Remember a computer byte is eight bits. have you noticed below that the binary codes for the letters in the alphabet are each eight bits or one byte?

Below is a chart of the Binary code for the English alphabet.  Notice that uppercase letters have a different code than the lowercase letters. As the weeks go by I shall add more charts to this and you will see binary code for spaces, and commas, and exclamation points!

Letter Binary Code A 01000001 B 01000010 C 01000011 D 01000100 E 01000101 F 01000110 G 01000111 H 01001000 I 01001001 J 01001010 K 01001011 L 01001100 M 01001101 N 01001110 O 01001111 P 01010000 Q 01010001 R 01010010 S 01010011 T 01010100 U 01010101 V 01010110 W 01010111 X 01011000 Y 01011001 Z 01011010

Letter Binary Code a 01100001 b 01100010 c 01100011 d 01100100 e 01100101 f 01100110 g 01100111 h 01101000 i 01101001 j 01101010 k 01101011 l 01101100 m 01101101 n 01101110 o 01101111 p 01110000 q 01110001 r 01110010 s 01110011 t 01110100 u 01110101 v 01110110 w 01110111 x 01111000 y 01111001 z 01111010

00101110 this is the binary code for  this:    .  a dot/period

00100000 this is the binary code for this:         a space between words.

 

Remember there are only 10 kinds of people in the world: Those that know binary and those that don't!

 

Wonderful things are happening in the Lab!