eli5: how do computers tell the difference between letters and numbers

Question

eli5: how do computers tell the difference between letters and numbers

In: Technology

Answer 1

There are standards that are followed such as ASCII or Unicode. These tell you which bit patterns in the computer map to which letter/number.

When you receive a text message, or even read this post, there is an area of your computers memory that contains the binary representation of the message, and the computer maps those binary numbers to the specific characters to display.