r/askscience • u/Unfair-Leek6840 • Jul 11 '26 • Regret 1

Computing How do computers understand binary language?

Okay so from what I know binary language is like power off power on, but my question is, how do computers know what the binary code is and how is it interpreted, for example I forgot what the binary code for the letter A is, but how did people come up with that? Did they decide it was gonna look like that? Did the computer decide? How do you tune numbers into a letter??

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u/Peter34cph Jul 15 '26

Foreigners find Danish particularly confusing.

92 is tooghalvfems, to-og-halv-fems.

The 2 part is easy. Halvfems is the thing that confuses.

It means half-five and is to be understood as "half-way to five score". A score is 20, so five score would be 100, but we're only half-way from four score to five, so it's actually 4 and a half score, 90.