Processing Binary Data (OCR GCSE Computer Science)

Processing Binary Data

Why does data have to be converted to binary to be processed by a computer?

• A computer is built using switches that can either be on or off, this fits the binary number system which only has two digits (1/0), which means off can be represented by a 0 and on can be represented by a 1

• This means all data must be converted to binary before a computer can understand and process it

• Converting data to binary allows computers to process it at an incredible speed, perform complex calculations and store vast amounts of data efficiently

• Examples of where you see this process is in secondary storage, in magnetic hard drives they use North and South polarity to represent a 1 or a 0 and in optical disks light is reflected back to the surface or not, 1 and 0 

• Take an example of driving a car

  • When driving a car the accelerator pedal is used to increase the cars speed

  • If a car was accelerating from 50mph to 100mph the increase would be gradual

  • In a computer system, the car is doing either 50mph (0) or 100mph (1), there is no in-between

  • Trying to change the computer system so that it has more options would be less efficient and require more complex parts for the computer to understand