Students Can Write Their Names in Binary Code

When I first started programming the computer the use of ASCII code (An American Standard) was printed in any major computer textbook. Today you may not see it in any textbooks. In the early days when computers were very slow and did not have much memory knowing codes was particularly important. Through the use of special codes in programs you could make the computer do some things much more quickly because you were telling the computer what to do more directly in computer language. When you type on the computer the letters and all keys must be translated into codes the computer actually uses. This conversion still happens today through a section of the processor called the interpreter. Originally this took a lot of time in computer terms. So there were special computer languages like "assembly code" and "machine code" which could work much faster. If you wrote a program in BASIC (an old computer language) then ran a program that played a game, it could end up being a pretty slow game. If the program you wrote was changed into assembly code or machine code it could run over 1000 times faster.

The computer essentially still works on 0's and 1's and still groups them into groups of eight which forms what is called 1 BYTE of information. The binary code listed in the graphic lists the eight bit codes that represented the letters of the alphabet. Teachers may want to hand out copies of this code sheet and have students write their names in binary code, but you may want them to have a tiny space between sections of binary code or put some type of mark after each group of eight and a bigger space between their first and last name.

A bit is one 0 (zero) or 1 (1) and technically a group of four bits was called a nibble and a group of eight bits (two nibbles) was called a BYTE and more than one BYTE sent through the computer at one time was called a "Gulp". There were computer magazines called "Nibble" and "BYTE". There was never one that I know of called a gulp. A bit is the smallest piece of computer information. Today computers can process many BYTES at one time it is what we mean by 32 bit processors etc. (which then means four BYTES) There is a difference between internal processing rates and external processing rates. A computer could be able to process BYTES at a quicker rate for example than it could transmit them to an external device like a printer.

Mathematics teachers might want to teach the mathematics of binary code. Each group of zeros and ones can also represent a specific number. In fact there is a very specific range of numbers represented in this alphabetical set of codes. Students may want to only use capital letters when they write their name in code. Today a whole set of new programming languages have been developed for the internet and special programming languages are developed for very specific applications. Today more of us are familiar with "html" (hyper-text Markup Language" for internet web pages than with Basic, Qbasic, or Visual Basic.