Page 79 - Bebop to The Boolean Boogie An Unconventional Guide to Electronics Fundamentals, Components, and Processes

60 Chapterseven

Once again, subscripts are used to indicate the relevant base; for example,
10110, = 22,, (10110,,,,, - 22,,,,mL). Sometime in the late 1940s, the
-
American chemist-turned-topologist-turned-statistician John Wilder Tukey
realized that computers and the binary number system were destined to become
important. In addition to coining the word “software,” Tukey decided that
saying “binary digit” was a bit of a mouthful, so he started to look for an alter-
native. He considered a variety of options like binit and bigit, but he eventually
settled on bit, which is elegant in its simplicity and is used to this day. Thus,
the binary value 10110, would be said to be 5 bits wide. Additionally, a group
of 4 bits is known as a nybble (sometimes called a nibble), and a group of 8 bits
is known as a byte. The idea that “two nybbles make a byte” in is the way of
being an engineer’s idea of a joke, which shows that they do have a sense of
humor (it’s just not a particularly sophisticated one)?
Counting in binary commences at 0 and rather quickly progresses up to l,,
at which point all the available digits have been used. Thus, the next count
causes the first column to be reset to 0 and the second column to be incremented

resulting in 10,. Similarly, when the count reaches 1 l,, the next count causes
the first column to be reset to zero and the second column to be incremented.
But, as the second column already contains a 1, this causes it to be reset to 0
and the third column to be incremented resulting in 100, (Figure 7-13).

Although binary mathematics is fairly simple, humans tend to find it difficult
at first because the numbers are inclined to be long and laborious to manipulate.
For example, the binary value 1101001 1, is relatively difficult to conceptualize,
while its decimal equivalent of 2 11 is comparatively easy. On the other hand,
working in binary has its advantages. For example, if you can remember.
oxo=o
ox1=0
lxO=O
lxl=l

. . . then you’ve just memorized the entire binary multiplication table!

Continuing the theme, there have been sporadic attempts to construct terms for bit-groups of other
sizes; for example, tuyste or crumb for a 2-bit group, playte or chawmp for a 16-bit group, dynner or
guwble for a 32-bit group, and tuyble for a 64-bit group. But you can only take a joke so far, and using
anything other than the standard terms nybble and byte is extremely rare. Having said this, the term
word is commonly used as discussed in Chapter 15.