Binary Gates Demystified

What do 0s and 1s really mean? How can a computer do so many things with just 0s and 1s? It's really quite fascinating once you learn how it all works.

Imagine we could turn practically everything that we know into a series of yes-or-no questions. That is how we use 0s and 1s in our computers, because a 1 represents a yes and 0 represents no. To be more specific, a 1 represents true and a 0 represents a false. In your computer, a 1/yes/true is a spike in an electrical signal, while a 0/no/false is when there is a low electrical signal (or none at all). This is why on-off switches have a 1 in the on position and a 0 in the off position.

By the way, these 1s and 0s can be sent through these things called logic gates. Logic gates take two of these yes-or-no questions and say either yes or no based on what goes in. The video explains how the OR, AND, and XOR (exclusive or) gates work. In a nutshell, an AND gate only gives you a yes (1) if both of the values it gets are yes (1), whereas an OR gate will give you a 1 if either input is 1. As for XOR, it only gives you a 1 if only one input is 1. Last, but not least, there is also a negation gate that inverts 1 to 0 and 0 to 1.

For an additional, whimsical overview of binary and gates, check out Chapter 2 of The Manga Guide to Microprocessors by No Starch Press.