Because it is very easy to control electronics parts so they are fully on or off with a control signal just on of off. Having multiple possible levels in a wire is possible but require lots more parts and changing stare is slower. A result the signal in the computer will just have two states on or off is faster, that is binary.
You could use 4 binary bits (wires) to represent a 1 digit decimal number. But 4 bits can represent 16 different states, not just 10. So only 10/16 = ~62% of the available states mean a 4-bit digital number is used for a 1 digit decimal.
The inefficiency gets larger if we have more digits a 2-digit decimal number like that requires 8 bits and that this 2^8 =256 combinations 100/256 = 39% efficiency.
Doing maths is also a bit harder if you do not use all available states. The result is that using it as binary is a more efficient use of the resources you have. IF you what to input and output decimal numbers you can just convert them at that point and store them as binary in the computer.
You can store data like and it is called binary-coded decimal (BCD) is can in some situations be easier to use but for multiple reasons is not as common today as in the past
You can build [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_computer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_computer) and the first digital electronic computer ENIAC from 1945 is an example. For some design you had 10 wires for each digit whereas only now was on at the time. If you look a IBM computers, the was the largest computer manufacturer early on, they started to use fully binary computers with the IBM System/360 introduced in 1964
Latest Answers