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> cannot print out the string "ABC" When you write a program in any modern programming language to print "ABC", that program merely outputs the 3 bytes 0100000
by tromp 3y ago
> cannot print out the string "ABC"
When you write a program in any modern programming language to print "ABC",
that program merely outputs the 3 bytes 01000001 01000010 01000011,
ASCII codes which your console window (not the program you wrote) decides to display graphically as those characters.
So any machine outputting bits can be said to print out "ABC" just as well.
Furthermore, your comment above was transmitted by your browser to Hacker News not as English characters but as those very bits, and everyone reading your comment was receiving those bits. The way that the browser decides to display those bits does not change their character.
- rhelz 3y ago> When you write a program in any modern programming language Think about it this way. Say you have 1 bit of memory. Can you store any of the three numbers -1, 0, 1 with that a bit?? No. The only thing a bit can store is 0 or 1. There have been trinary computers built. They don't use bits, they use trits. A Trit can store -1,0, or 1. A bit cannot. Saying that a turing machine, whose symbol set is {0,1} can print "A" on its tape, is like saying you can store "-1" >>>in a single bit<<<< on a binary computer.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- DemocracyFTW2 3y ago> The way that the browser decides to display those bits does not change their character ... pun intended—?