Binary Converter

What is Binary Code?

Binary is the fundamental language of computers. It is a base-2 numeral system that uses only two symbols: 0 and 1.

While humans use the decimal system (base-10) likely because we have ten fingers, computers use binary because of electricity. A transistor in a computer processor can be either OFF (0) or ON (1). By combining billions of these switches, computers can represent complex data like images, video, and the webpage you are reading right now.

How to Convert Decimal to Binary

To convert a decimal number to binary manually, you use the "Divide by 2" method:

1. Divide the number by 2.
2. Write down the remainder (0 or 1).
3. Take the result (quotient) and divide by 2 again.
4. Repeat until the result is 0.
5. Read the remainders from bottom to top.

Understanding Hexadecimal

Binary strings get very long very quickly. Hexadecimal (Base-16) is used as a shorthand. It uses numbers 0-9 and letters A-F.

• 0-9 represents values 0-9.
• A represents 10.
• B represents 11.
• ...
• F represents 15.

One Hex digit represents exactly 4 binary bits (a "nibble"). This makes it perfect for color codes (like #FFFFFF) and memory addresses.

Text to Binary (ASCII)

Computers don't understand letters like 'A' or 'B'. They use standards like ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange).

In ASCII, every character is assigned a number.
'A' is 65 (Binary: 01000001)
'a' is 97 (Binary: 01100001)