Discussion
Which number system is used internally by digital computers?
Answer: D
Correct answer: Binary
Digital computers work internally in binary, base 2, using only the digits 0 and 1. The reason is physical rather than mathematical. A circuit can distinguish two voltage levels reliably and cheaply - on or off, high or low - and that reliability degrades quickly if more levels must be told apart. Two states also map directly onto the switching behaviour of a transistor and onto the true and false of Boolean algebra, which is what makes logic gates possible. Octal and hexadecimal are used by people rather than by machines, as compact ways of writing binary: each octal digit stands for exactly three bits and each hexadecimal digit for exactly four, so conversion is done by grouping rather than by division. A byte such as 11010110 becomes D6 in hexadecimal at a glance. Decimal is what humans use, and converting between it and binary requires actual arithmetic, which is why it is not used internally.
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