
Fundamentals
£ gives a result such as 0.99999999 rather than 1.00000000, and the
difference is due to the approximations using floating point numbers.
Coding to binary
An important feature of computing is the ability to express any form of data
in binary form, since this is the 'internal' representation, the form that
corresponds to the 0 and 1 electrical signals in the machine. We have seen
that alphabetical data, names, punctuation marks and digits that will not be
used for arithmetic can be converted into ASCII codes. These ASCII codes
are seven-bit numbers and another set of codes is available if another bit can
be used. Most small computer ...