18, OCR GCSE (J277) 1.2 Binary shifts
About this video
An arithmetic logic unit is also capable of “binary shifting”. That is moving the binary digits in the accumulator to the left or right a given number of spaces. In effect this either multiplies or divides the number by a factor of two, but in reality it is used to access and change individual bits in a series. This is useful when the binary stored is not really a number, but represents something else. This often finds uses in low level programming because micro-controllers and microprocessors rely on the values of individual bits for particular operations. This video provides a brief introduction.
Last updated: 28.02.25
