Electronics Question:

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All computer logic today uses FETs as switches. A FET is a switch with gain, meaning that a small signal change on its input (the Gate) causes a bigger signal in the Drain. Bigger does not mean bigger voltage, it usually means more current at the same voltage, so it can drive many other inputs after it. Two FETs can be connected together to make a logic gate, like an AND function. In addition, gates can be connected together to make flip-flops and counters and adders, etc.

Logic "1" is usually a higher voltage than logic "0", and logic 0 is usually zero volts. In newer processors, the high voltage is less than a volt, since the FETs are so small that 1.5V will blow them up.

Therefore, it is not the presence of a signal or the lack of one; it is a high voltage and a low voltage. There is nothing that the computer translates, that voltage is it, throughout the computer. That is what binary means, one of two voltages. There is no clock involved to make something binary all signals in the computer are all binary logic with a voltage. Even a clock is just a logic signal that goes between 1 and 0 at a periodic rate.