CHAPTER 9
Digital Electronics
There are three types of people in the world: those who understand binary and those who don't.—seen on T-shirt
There's no magic in the decimal (base 10) numbering system; it's one of many different numbering schemes and it just happens to be the most common human numbering system. Is it just a coincidence that there are ten unique numbers in the decimal system and we have ten fingers and toes? Perhaps. But we can imagine that there exists some connection between the convenience of counting on fingers and the management of large numbers.
By the same token, a computer has two “fingers” to count on, so to speak, or two states by which to keep track of numbers—“on” and “off.” At the heart of every computer is a complex ...
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