Summary:

• A bit is any information that exists in one of two possible states.

  • A flag that can be up or down represents one bit.

  • A light that can be on or off.

  • A transistor that is on or off.

  • A capacitor that is charged or discharged.

• A binary digit (represented by 1 or 0) can represent one bit of information.

• A byte is eight bits.

• A byte can represent a decimal number as high as 255. This would be represented by all bits being 1. Therefore, 11111111 represents 255 in decimal.

• Two bytes is a word. Four bytes is a long word. Eight bytes is a very long word.

• Hexadecimal numbers are a shorthand code for binary numbers.

• It is fairly easy to learn to convert from binary to hexadecimal, and hexadecimal to binary in your head.

Bonus Exercise

Use the resources above to convert the following numbers. Move your mouse over the blank lines to see the answers.

1. Convert 1011100111001010 to Hexadecimal
   • B9CA (1011 = B, 1001 = 9, 1100 = C, 1010 = A)
2. Convert the hexadecimal number 4D7C to binary.
• 0100110101111100 (4 = 0100, D = 1101, 7 = 0111, C = 1100)
3. Convert 10000001 to decimal.
• 129 (128+1)
4. Convert the decimal number 65 to binary.
• 01000001 (64+1)
5. Convert the hexadecimal number 65 to binary..
• 01100101 (6 = 0110, 5 = 0101)