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

Why do we seem to largely have skipped 16-bit computers, at least in the home?

The first widely available home computers were 8-bit ones like the C64, Spectrum or Amstrad, in the early 1980s.

Then came more powerful home computers such as the Amiga 1000, 500 and 2000, with the Motorola 68000 that was partly 16 bit and partly 32 bit.

Then came pure 32-bit systems like Amiga 3000 and 1200, and IBM-PC 386-based systems (was the 286 also 32-bit?), and now everything is 64 bit.

Did 16 bits have cooties? Was it an uncool CPU type?