Data Representation

overview

Summary

At the lowest level, a computer stores everything as bits—tiny on/off signals written as 0 and 1, called binary. A sequence of bits by itself has no meaning; it becomes a number, a letter, or a color only when we use an agreed rule, called an encoding or format, to interpret it. For example, the bits 1000001 are 65 as a number, but “A” in a common text code. The rule gives meaning to the bits—that is the core of data representation.