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Thread: Binary Coding

  1. #1

    Exclamation Binary Coding

    How do you write a program using binary code? Without using any other programs? Like.. basically.. How do you program something from nothing? What comes before DOS?

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  2. #2
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    Actually, I'm curious about that too.

    That's a good song, by the way.

  3. #3
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    You don't write programs in binary code...you have to use some sort of language and compiler/interpreter.

    If your interested in low levels languages..Try Assembly...

    Assembly is as low level as it gets...next to machine language (binary).


    Sencond...What do you mean...What comes before DOS?
    Clarification is Needed !


    Hope This Has Helped
    Simon Templer

    \"Your work is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it. \"
    -The Buddha

  4. #4
    Maybe something like this.

    11100100 {Begin Prog}

    01001001{Var}

    01000111
    00100100
    00110110
    10001010
    01001001
    01000100
    10010010
    01001001
    01001101



    01001000{End Prog}.

  5. #5

    Specification

    Okay.. let's say.. first of all, I'm just getting ahead of myself as far as school goes, I don't think I'll be up to this for some time.. But.. I'd like to make my own motherboard let's say.. (If you know anything about that.. like where I can get parts to build it, etc.. please include whatever you know) Okay, so after you get your motherboard.. You have DOS.. How do you program DOS? I mean.. It's a basic output system.. and.. now this is gonna sound like a religious.. "who made god, who made the creator of god, repeat.." question.. but.. how do you program an OS or a compiler without an OS or a compiler..???

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  6. #6
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    Ok...Maybe I can clear some of the misconception here...

    On your motherboard is a chip..that contains the BIOS (Basic Input Output System)

    The BIOS is what communicates with the hardware...The "DOS" that you have been referring to...is in essense "DOS", but is not.... The "DOS" within the BIOS only supports a handful of commands (The actual DOS (Disk Operating System) is as it's name implies an operating system!) . But there is such as thing as a LINUX BIOS (It comes as a chip that replaces the old BIOS)

    Now... All an operating system is...Is a piece of system software that takes user input and "interprets" it into the language of the BIOS, which is then responsible for communicating with the hardware.

    Please Keep This In Mind: The only language the computer actually understands is Binary (1's & 0's) ALL data is converted into binary.

    I hope this has helped
    Simon Templer

    \"Your work is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it. \"
    -The Buddha

  7. #7
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    That cleared up more than you know. Thanks.

  8. #8
    Old-Fogey:Addicts founder Terr's Avatar
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    From memory... So not entirely accurate.

    In the beginning, there was Babbage. (Sort of.) And this Babbage character tried to make a 'difference engine', basically an extremely simple calculator out of gears and cogs and mechanical stuff. Whether he completed it or it worked... dunno, but he had an influence.

    Then came vacuum tubes, these tubes had a (gasp!) vacuum (nearly) inside, and were basically old-and-bulky (size of your thumb) transistors. A transistor is a very simple circuit component which has three wires. If the third wire has current on it, current will flow between the other two wires. It was, in essence, a switch, and could be turned on by giving it electricity.

    Then came a time when almost all programming was done by purely hardware methods. (See ENIAC) Eventually true NPN/PNP (not Plug'n'Play) transistors were developed, and vacuum tubes done away with. Then came Von Neuman, or, at any rate, ideas of his. And then things started to use software as well as hardware, and ways were introduced to approximate a series of signals as a series of transistor switches!

    In other words, you could turn a string of 1's and 0's into a function for manipulating MORE 1's and 0's! Holy smokes! How did they do that? The hardware is still the same... I can't answer too well without looking it up.

    Then you got some lady called (Researched this...) Grace Murray Hopper. (End research.) She figured out how to make the first computer compiler. Before this, people had to program in long, tedious, tortuous binary. Although sometimes they used Hexedecimal notation to shorten the amount of writing they needed to do, and to make it look clearer.

    I'm not sure if Assembly came before the compiler, I think it might have been the first compiled language. At any rate, things exploded from there, with more and more complexity in each sucessive language, and more routines to break each language down to machine code.

    So, theoretically, the .exe file contains the source code that the person wrote... the problem is that deciphering the stream of binary is a monumental task, and putting it back into C++ or whatever it came from takes so long that nobody really bothers. But it is possible to change it to Assembly, the closest thing to writing ones and zeroes that anyone (who doesn't have serious psychological problems) gets to these days.
    [HvC]Terr: L33T Technical Proficiency

  9. #9
    Old-Fogey:Addicts founder Terr's Avatar
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    Okay, back. I had to catch my virtual breath. Now I shall impart what my sieve-like mind caught from last-year's A+ certification class... (Haven't taken test yet.)

    On to BIOS. Now, motherboards have their own processors on them, in a sense. They just are specialized chips (the northbridge and southbridge chips, in certain terminologies.) To make your own motherboard would be quite a challenge, and you'd need a manufacturing plant to do a good job.

    BIOS stands for Basic Input/Output System (Although some call it a Service instead of a System.) BIOS is often on a small chip on your motherboard, and it translates some of the most basic functions, allowing a program to show a pixel on the monitor, or to get data from a PCI card, getting keyboard commands... etc. These are usually motherboard-specific, because motherboard hardware can vary to a significant degree (Within the AT/X form factors, and more if you include the low-profile ones with riser cards and stuff.)

    As for making an OS/Compiler without either... see my previous post. It's sort of founded on itself. Nowadays we use computers to design computers to design computers... It keeps going. (And happens in several other technological areas too).

    Hardware transistor switches arrayed in mind-boggling complexity... Then Machine code which could make something new happen, without having to physically reprogram the machine by moving circuit components... then a compiler to let people use shortcuts to machine code... then a compiler to let people use neater shortcuts... and a new one to use even neater shortcuts to machine code... So on and so forth.
    [HvC]Terr: L33T Technical Proficiency

  10. #10
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    I'd just like to say thank you to Terr. Good information. It answers a question, similiar to TeKRoMaNCeR's that I have thought about.

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