Digital vs. Binary Computers

From: Randall Hyde (randyhyde_at_earthlink.net)
Date: 04/21/04 

Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2004 02:24:01 GMT

"Beth" <BethStone21@hotmail.NOSPICEDHAM.com> wrote in message
news:122hc.1$tB3.0@newsfe1-gui.server.ntli.net...

>
> But, yes, the "di" in "digital" appears NOT to be anything to do with
> "two" whatsoever (if it ever did - rather than it just being a
> "concidence of letters" to a common prefix - then it's long lost that
> particular meaning a while ago ;)...although, you can perfectly
> understand the logic because "di-" and "bi-" prefixing words _does_,
> in the main, usually mean "two" something or another...

"digital" comes from "digits" as in fingers and toes, as you pointed
out. The term implies base-10, as the natural numbering system
that humans adopted way back when.

Originally, there were digital computers (that worked in decimal)
and there were binary computers. Over the years, the meanings got
kind of merged.

I haven't followed this thread, because quite frankly it isn't very
interesting, but someone has pointed out that flash memory is
base-4, right? It stores four voltage levels in each cell so you
get two bits' worth of data in each cell.
Cheers,
Randy Hyde