COURSE HANDOUT Machine Structure 01

Abstract

Over the centuries, the way of representing numbers has adapted to the use we want to make of them and to the needs generated by new discoveries. Thus, the shepherds could content themselves with keeping a cord to which they added a knot at the birth of a sheep; this counting practice suited them, since the only need was to "count" the sheep in order to ensure that none were lost. This practice was also at the origin of the Chinese abacus and the rosary. Over the course of the evolution of needs, the modes of representation and manipulation of numbers, that is to say the numbering systems, have evolved. The decimal system using ten symbols is now in use and suits the needs of modern science. However, the discovery of electricity and its development created new needs, including that of the binary number system and two other systems related to it: the octal system and the hexadecimal system.