Counting in binary can seem a bit daunting but it’s not really any different to normal decimal counting. When you were first learning numbers you’d have been taught about the unit’s ten’s hundred’s columns system.
| Hundred’s | Ten’s | Unit’s |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0 | 5 |
Binary is basically the same, but instead of have multiple options (0 up to 9 in decimal) it only has 2, so each column is basically a tick box for it’s value. The values go up in powers of 2 e.g. 1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256,1024,2048…
To convert a number from decimal to binary you can:
41-32=9 9-8=1 1-1=0
| Decimal | 128’s | 64’s | 32’s | 16’s | 8’s | 4’s | 2’s | 1’s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 105 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
If you add up the values with 1 in their column 1+8+32+64 you get 105. Now try converting:
| Decimal | 128’s | 64’s | 32’s | 16’s | 8’s | 4’s | 2’s | 1’s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 97 | ||||||||
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 |