Computers have come a long way since their introduction. They have changed tremendously in almost every aspect we can think of. The engineers of the first computers could not even imagine machines so millions of times more powerful that do not take up a whole room. Many imagined that computers would get larger in area in order to increase their speed and efficiency.

If you are reading these words, you know that the engineer's assumptions were totally wrong. We now have very small computers that take up only a fraction of the room compared to the 1940's and 1950's. What is even more interesting is that computers have transformed into something much different over the years. They are not only available to large governments and wealthy Universities. In fact, in the western world, they are used nearly everywhere, even in homes. The current status of computers is therefore much different than people thought it would be 40-50 years ago.

Nevertheless, the way that today's computers work is surprisingly very similar to the models from the 40's and 50's.

The binary system is a language that the computer can understand. The language only has two symbols. These two symbols have many different names, including on and off, true and false, yes and no, 1 and 0. In fact, the computer actually works by receiving millions of 0's and 1's, and then interpreting what it means. The colors on the screen that you are looking at right now are all created because information (in 0's and 1's) was received by a part from the computer. The binary system has not changed at all during the years of the computer.

We will show you how the binary system works. This includes converting binary to our own number system, converting our number system to binary, binary addition and subtraction, as well as how binary numbers are manipulated inside the computer.

The computer is made of millions of logic gates.  These gates give out binary outputs from the inputs that they receive. Although they have been miniaturized, the basic logic gates are still in use in today's computers. We will show you how they work, as well as how they are built.