Q&A for How to Read Binary

You translate a string of binary code to decimals and then translate the decimals into html code. For example, 111011= 123, 123= { . Write multiple strings of binary code and you'll get a sentence.

You will need some basic understanding of math (addition and multiplication) or a calculator.

It really depends on the method you're using. If you're looking for a sentence conversion, then the computer automatically reads in sets of eight e.g 00111111 (?), 00111101 (=), 01000001 (A) etc. However, the process the computer goes through is much more complicated than that. Essentially, every five digits is equal to either a symbol, number, or letter.

Bytes are groups of 8 bits, but you can encode numbers with any amount of bits, each place keeps increasing by a power of two as you read along from right to left.

Because using that method, the first number read has no numerical value, regardless of it either being 1 or 0. It is what is necessary to get that particular method to work.

You can encode letters as binary using an encoding scheme (Unicode, etc.) and send the binary to someone else. The other person has to decode the binary back into letters using that encoding. Bytes (8 bits) can be thought of as numbers between 0-256, and most characters can be encoded as single bytes.

1100: that's one 8, plus one 4.

The numeral 2 does not exist in the binary system. The binary equivalent of 2 is 10 ("one-zero"), which means one 2 and zero 1's. Adding in the binary system is done the same way it's done in the ten-based (or "decimal") system. See Add Binary Numbers .

Yes, simply search online for a "binary to text" converter. There are many so you shouldn't have any problems finding one.

Binary is always a number. However, when converted to denary (decimal numbers), that number can be compared to the ASCII chart to see what letter/symbol it represents in ASCII code. For example, 01000001 is 65 in denary. 65 is Capital A in ASCII. Binary to be translated into ASCII is typically written in sets of eight binary digits, like in the example. Sometimes the leftmost zeroes are dropped to remove redundancy.

There are several other useful wikiHow articles about the binary system. Search for them on the search bar at the top of this page.

Binary is only in numbers. ASCII is one of many ways to represent an alphabet using binary.

In reality, all computer software is binary when it is translated into "machine code".

No, that will give you a completely different number. For example, binary 10 would be decimal 2, while trinary 10 would be decimal 3. A system that uses 3 as base instead of 2 is called trinary and used quite rarely.

There are a few apps you can install where you type in values or generally what you want and it will return in binary code. Look for one and download it, the enter your information according to the app's instructions.

To convert from one base to a second base, the easiest way is to covert the first base to base-10 and then covert the base-10 number to the second base.

Binary codes are useful for machine instructions in which "on" and "off" are the only two allowed states of a given component (switch, LED, memory cell, etc).

Become proficient in reading binary numbers and memorize their associated values on the ASCII chart.

See Convert from Decimal to Binary .

Zeros are not usually inserted on the left. In normal usage the left-most digit is always a 1. (In the above article, they've placed some zeros on the left merely as a teaching point.)

The easiest way to do this is to translate the binary numbers into base-10, perform the division, and then translate the quotient back into binary. However, there's another way to do it. See Divide Binary Numbers .