Summary
Understanding the inner workings of your computer is a prerequisite for becoming a master programmer. Only after learning about what is under the hood can your programming skills blossom. Computer programming has come a long way since the early days of wiring panels and switches. High-level languages such as COBOL and FORTRAN offered a much easier approach to making computers do what you wanted them to do.
Memory is little more than on and off switches.
The pattern of bits that corresponds to a specific character is determined by the ASCII table.
Once keyboards were attached to computers, many advances began. The earliest nonbinary programming language was called assembler language. The assembler translates assembler coded mnemonics into 1s and 0s.
High-level programming languages such as FORTRAN and COBOL provide a much easier programming environment because they are one step closer to spoken language and one step further from the machine's native binary code.