Understanding 8-Digit Binary Numbers: A Beginner's Guide

[luckis11]

How does it (it=what?) distinguish each 8-digit (10100100) from the previous and the next?

 

[jtbell]

I'm sorry, I don't understand your question.

 

[Mark44]

Nor do I. Can you restate the question more clearly?

 

[fss]

I think the question is:

How does the computer know when one byte ends and the next begins?

 

[luckis11]

Yes, a byte.

I also asked what exactly distinguishes them, now I see that this means two questions?: What distinguishes the bytes at software and what at hardware.

 

[DaleSwanson]

I believe the only thing that distinguishes bytes in hardware is the fact that they are all 8 bits long. So the hard drive or RAM knows that if this is the 64th bit that it is the first bit in its byte.

I can't think of a situation where software would really see bits, only bytes. However, if it did it would do it the same way. Just assume that every byte begins with a multiple of 8 bit.

 

[luckis11]

PLEASE forget my previous question. I want to grasp this:

The bits 0 and 1 are the whether signal passes from a gate or not, correct? It seems not correct: The gate NOT converts a signal "1" to a signal "0", whereas a signal always passes from that gate?

Is it (ONLY OR ALSO?) that the e.g. 101 means that at a wire (just a wire, no gates in between) there is an electrical pulse of (wavefront- no wavefront-wavefront)?

 

[luckis11]

PLEASE forget my previous question. I want to grasp this:

The bits 0 and 1 are what?

The whether signal passes from a gate or not? This seems wrong because the gate NOT converts a signal "1" to a signal "0", whereas a signal always passes from that gate?

Is it that the e.g. 101 means that at a wire (just a wire, no gates in between) there is an electrical pulse of (wavefront- no wavefront-wavefront)? This also seems wrong because if it was so, the signal that arrives from the one wire to the gate should be 111111111..., and the other one should be 000000000...otherwise how could it be that...

? A link that explains this?