ones and zeroes

Noun

ones and zeroes pl (plural only)

1. (informal, plural, plural-only) Binary code; on and off bits.
   • The incoming signals were broken down into digital code—ones and zeroes—by a relatively simple computer and downlinked to Fort Huachuca, where another computer of vastly greater power examined the bits of raw information and tried to make sense of them.1989 August 17, Tom Clancy, Clear and Present Danger, New York, N.Y.: G[eorge] P[almer] Putnam’s Sons, →ISBN; Berkley premium tie-in edition, New York, N.Y.: Berkley Books, November 2018, →ISBN, page...
   • The so-called higher level programming languages, like the various dialects of BASIC and PASCAL familiar to students in the 1980s, greatly simplified the business of programming, since it is no longer necessary—at least for certain purposes—to do what is now called "machine language programming,"...1990, G. E. Scott, “Malleable Persons”, in Moral Personhood: An Essay in the Philosophy of Moral Psychology (SUNY Series in Ethical Theory), Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, →ISBN...