This blog is kinda in response to what I read on "Lunarhunks" blog. He's been reading these "James Bond" books, and in one of them he says they tie in "The Binary" code to the storyline. Ok I guess, but what I am thinking is the average person (without in-depth computer knowledge) Isn't gonna be able to follow it. I haven't seen the book, so I don't know how they explained it. What I'm gonna "try" to do, is give the "most simple" yet deep explanation of it I can. I actually did this a little once before, but not as deep as I will try now.

Not to mention.. lol. I gotta write something "non-conflicting" today. Think my last posts pissed a few people off.

Binary is pretty simple to understand. It's a basic numbering system based on the "powers of 2". When you go to school, you are doing math related on "powers of 10". The difference is, this computer you use everyday, couldn't even comprehend that. Everything in your computer is based on powers of "2".

The reason is quite simple actually. In the "alphabet" (plus some other characters), there are 256 characters. Each Character is represented as "1 byte" on your computers hard drive. Now each "Byte" needs to be stored as "8 bits" on your computer.

Every single letter stored on your computer, is stored as "1" byte. Every byte is actually "8 bits". It takes "8 bits" to represent every letter in the English language. So for instance, the simple letter "A" is "01000001" in "Binary. Count the numbers. There are "8". This is how they are stored. The letter "M" is "01001101" in Binary.

Why are they just a collection of "ones and zeros" you wonder. Now that deals with how your "Hard Drive" actually stores these "Bytes". Every single "Byte" stored in your "Hard disk" is electrically placed first, and magnetically held. The "ones and zeros" are actually "magnetically stored" things on your hard drive, to represent a single "character". 1 "Byte" can only store "1" character. It can only store "256" colors (1 at a time). Because each color could be stored as a "character".

I'm gonna go deeper a bit from what I wrote "above", that was easy to understand. I'll get a little "deeper" for those that want to know more.

Lets "first" take this on a very low level. One that I feel is "kinda" simplistic, but you can do the numbers in your head to understand how most computers work today.

Ok, lets say you have a picture that is "640 x 480" resolution. Each "dot" on the screen is called a "pixel". That means, there are 640 pixels across, and 480 pixels down in depth.

The math is fairly simple, if it was an "8 bit picture". I never understood why they talk "Bytes" in most, but "Bits" in others. Maybe to confuse us.. lol.. Anyway. That would only be "256 colors" on the picture. You would times "640 by 480". Giving a result of "307,200" "bytes" (not bits) of storage for a "640 x 480" picture with 256 colors.

The same picture, at "16 bit" would actually have "16 million" colors possible. Now here it gets "confusing" so I can't go into that deep. Your computer today is probably set at "32" bit color.. which is "true color". However, eyes can't really see the difference. Not that I can tell anyway.

I can say, as far as "storage" on your harddrive. 8 bit to 16 bit will double. 16 to 32 bit will double again (space wise). So the bytes on your computer are (times) by like 4.

Ya know what. I do know what I am talking about. I guess I since I can't even explain it myself, I have a hard time understanding how "either" a book writer or movie producer" could to the general public.

Hope I "redeemed" myself.. lol. I was a little "pissy on my last blogs...

Gary :)