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[Kon]

All digital information on a computer is ultimately in binary.

But, what is a 0 and a 1? Ground and 5 volts? But, 5 volts only makes sense relative to another voltage level. The 5 volts on your computer is not the same as the 5 volts on my computer because our ground levels are different. And the levels are not exactly 0 and 5 anyway. A voltage level of 4 would be treated as a binary 1. The bottom line is that if you go below the surface of binary, you have analog voltages.

[Charey Wolf]

All digital information on a computer is ultimately in binary.

But, what is a 0 and a 1? Ground and 5 volts? But, 5 volts only makes sense relative to another voltage level. The 5 volts on your computer is not the same as the 5 volts on my computer because our ground levels are different. And the levels are not exactly 0 and 5 anyway. A voltage level of 4 would be treated as a binary 1. The bottom line is that if you go below the surface of binary, you have analog voltages.

Not really, firstly a volt is a unit of measurement so 5 volts here is the same as 5 volts anywhere. Second the reason it is 5 volt for a "1" instead of 1 volt for a "1" is so data has some protection from signal degradation so if the signal has to travel a long distance or runs into interference the computer can still read it.

[darklord92]

All digital information on a computer is ultimately in binary.

But, what is a 0 and a 1? Ground and 5 volts? But, 5 volts only makes sense relative to another voltage level. The 5 volts on your computer is not the same as the 5 volts on my computer because our ground levels are different. And the levels are not exactly 0 and 5 anyway. A voltage level of 4 would be treated as a binary 1. The bottom line is that if you go below the surface of binary, you have analog voltages.

And if you go bellow that you have the very electrons of atoms moving in tandem as they jump from orbit to orbit. Wait is df a micro-verse now?

[Starver]

[slightly ninjaed, or maybe anti-ninjaed.  Was directly replying to Kon...]

...although the meaning of the voltages (which could be zero-low/one-high or zero-high/one-low, never mind the magnitude, polarity and ultimate base against which they are measured!) is increasingly irrelevant.  Indeed, it could be lights on/off, magnetic alignment in either of two directions (perpendicular or antiparallel), a hole in a card or not (to be read by either light or air passing or being stopped from being so), the presence or absence of a pit in a substrate or of some reflectivity upon one, a single electron trapped in a quantum trap[1], even whether a flag or lantern or arm is being held up by someone or not if you want to consider some more 'macro' systems that could do the same job.

It's not exactly correct to indicate that the binary is the best 'level' to discuss this at, as there are different machine-code 'dictionaries', according to the chip involved (and different microcodes to translate this into a form even more usable by the hardware itself, whilst still isolated from the vagaries of how the hardware implementation is made), but "ones and zeroes" does seem to be a minima, and at least capable of being translated to the 'correct' ones-and-zeroes code (if needed for another machine) regardless of what assembly/machine-code composition is used and how the underlying hardware works.


Also A Bunch Of Rocks.  (It rarely ever hurts to quote that site, where vaguely relevant. )


[1] Although that leads us into a complexity if it might be there, not there or... a superposition of both and either!

[Kon]

All digital information on a computer is ultimately in binary.

But, what is a 0 and a 1? Ground and 5 volts? But, 5 volts only makes sense relative to another voltage level. The 5 volts on your computer is not the same as the 5 volts on my computer because our ground levels are different. And the levels are not exactly 0 and 5 anyway. A voltage level of 4 would be treated as a binary 1. The bottom line is that if you go below the surface of binary, you have analog voltages.

Not really, firstly a volt is a unit of measurement so 5 volts here is the same as 5 volts anywhere. Second the reason it is 5 volt for a "1" instead of 1 volt for a "1" is so data has some protection from signal degradation so if the signal has to travel a long distance or runs into interference the computer can still read it.

I was just responding to this type of statement that I have heard before: "All digital information on a computer is ultimately in binary." On the one hand, higher levels of abstraction, such as programming languages, are much more useful. And, on the other hand, there are lower levels of abstraction such as electrons, quarks, and strings.