Numbers, Codes and a Little Logic

At the heart of any computer system are the numbering systems and digital codes used for instructions and memory storage.  Besides the ones and zeros it is important to understand how these bits are packaged into codes like BCD and Gray codes.  Understanding these concepts enables the programmer to manipulate the PLC at it's most basic level.  Don't you want to feel the power at your fingertips!?  Now for the most part these types of concepts will be transparent when programming but there will be occasions when you'll be glad you read this.

 

Caveman Tech

When the cavemen first started counting they sat around looking at their fingers and stopped at ten.  It took man a little longer to figure out the concept of zero but nobody is perfect.  So we've ended up with a common way of counting by 10's which in tech jargon is refered to as base-10 or radix-10.   Base or radix refers to the number of symbols you have available to count.  We'll see that computers make it more difficult for us lazy humans because they like to count by base-2 (binary).  In a compromise with computers us humans have developed the base-8 (octal) or base-16 (hexadecimal) systems.

 

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Hi

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Hi. Tip is Mansoor. I

Submitted by Mansoor on Sun, 2008-01-27 21:50.

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