Number Systems for Computing: Binary, Hexadecimal, Bit Flags, Two's Complement, Fixed & Floating Point and Storage Units
Learn how computers store numbers by converting them yourself: decimal, binary and hexadecimal, bit flags, two's complement, fixed and floating point and storage units, with every cell checked as you go.
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About this course
This course shows how computers store numbers by letting you do every conversion yourself. You turn decimal values into binary by repeated division with INT and MOD and back again with MID and POWER, write bytes as hex digits and split colour codes into red, green and blue. You read, set and clear bit flags in status bytes, store negative numbers in two's complement and decode them again, find integer limits and handle counters that roll over. Then you scale sensor values in fixed point, decode a toy 8-bit floating-point format, see why 0.1 is never exact, and convert GB to GiB, image sizes and text into bytes.
Lessons
- Positional Notation: Decimal to Binary by Repeated Division and Back Pro
- Hexadecimal & Octal: Nibbles, Hex Digits and Colour Codes Pro
- Bit Flags & Masks: Reading, Setting and Clearing Status Bits Pro
- Two's Complement: Signed Ranges, Negative Numbers and Decoding Bytes Pro
- Integer Limits & Overflow: Max Values, Bits Needed and Counters that Roll Over Pro
- Fixed Point: Scaling Factors, Resolution and Rounding Error Pro
- Floating Point with a Toy 8-Bit Format: Sign, Exponent, Mantissa and Why 0.1 Is Not Exact Pro
- Storage Units & Characters: GB vs GiB, File Sizes and Text in Bytes Pro