What is Binary?
Binary is a base-2 numbering system. While humans use base-10 (0-9), computers use transistors that act as switches, either being ON (1) or OFF (0). Every piece of music, every photo, and every word you type eventually becomes a long string of these binary digits (bits).
How Translation Works (ASCII/UTF-8)
To turn binary into text, computers use an encoding standard, most commonly UTF-8 (or the older ASCII). Each character is assigned a specific number. For example:
- The letter 'A' is the decimal number 65.
- The number 65 in binary is 01000001.
Our tool automatically scans these 8-bit sequences (bytes) and looks up the corresponding character in the encoding table.
Why Use a Binary Translator?
- Education: Learn the basics of how memory and data storage work.
- Secret Messages: Create fun encoded messages for friends.
- Connectivity: Engineers often need to read raw data packets from hardware devices that transmit in binary.
Step-by-Step Translation
Common Questions
What is "Base-64" compared to Binary?
While Binary represents data in bits, Base-64 is an encoding method used to turn binary data into a set of 64 ASCII characters. This is often used for email attachments or embedding images in HTML.
Are there other bases?
Yes. Hexadecimal (Base-16) is another very common system in programming, often used for representing colors or memory addresses.