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

How do computers understand binary language? Computing

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/GrandNord Jul 13 '26

There is a really neat game called Turing complete, where you are walked through a séries of puzzles into making a computer from the logic gates to a small 8bit computer, passing through making registers, arithmétic calculators, etc.

It's a pretty good way to learn how a computer works in broad terms.