Reference
What Is Binary Code?
Binary code is the language computers use to store and process everything, written with just two digits: 0 and 1. Each 0 or 1 is a bit, and a group of eight bits is a byte. A single byte can represent one letter, digit or symbol.
Why computers use binary
Computers are built from switches that are either off or on. Off is 0 and on is 1. Using only two states makes the hardware reliable and cheap, because it is far easier to tell apart two clear signals than many fine gradations.
From those two digits, everything is built. Numbers, text, images and sound are all stored as long strings of bits. The meaning depends on how the software chooses to read them.
How letters become binary
Text is stored using a code called ASCII, which gives each character a number. The capital letter A is 65, which in 8-bit binary is 01000001. Lowercase a is 97, or 01100001.
To turn text into binary, each character is looked up to get its number, and that number is written in base 2. To read binary back, you reverse the steps: group the bits into bytes, convert each to a number, and look up the character.
Frequently asked questions
What is a bit and a byte?
A bit is a single binary digit, 0 or 1. A byte is eight bits grouped together, which is enough to store one character of text or a number from 0 to 255.
How do I read binary code?
Split it into 8-digit bytes, convert each byte to a number, then look that number up in the ASCII table to get the character. Our binary translator does this instantly.
What is 01001000 in text?
01001000 is 72 in decimal, which is the capital letter H in ASCII.