ch computers operate internally, and from the structure of human language. These two directions of analysis emulate the courses followed by various groups of natural-language and AI researchers (Arbib, Conklin, and Hill, 1987). It is well-known that computers operate internally using binary codes, sequences of switch-settings that can symbolize, depending on circumstances, ones and zeros or yesses and nos. Any number can be expressed in binary notation using only 1 and 0, or the sequences can identify commands to computer hardware, or letters of the alphabet and other typewritten characters (e.g., the ASCII character set).
The earliest computers required input directly in binary form, and their output was also binary; both were inconvenient to human operators. The next step in development was assembler language, which rendered numbers in a simpler form (usually "base eight," for simpler internal conversion to binary, and command instructions by sequences of a few characters, such as ADD or JUMP. Assembler l
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