Definition of machine code

The term "machine code" refers to the set of instructions that a computer's processor can directly understand and execute without the need for translation. These instructions are binary, consisting of sequences of 0's and 1's, and are specific to the architecture and make of a particular CPU (Central Processing Unit). In the early days of computing, programs were written in machine code, as computers didn't have the luxury of higher-level programming languages that humans could read and write. This made programming incredibly tedious, time-consuming, and error-prone, as errors in the machine code could cause the computer to malfunction or crash completely. As a result, developers created assembly language, which was a human-readable version of machine code that could be translated into the corresponding binary instructions by an assembler program. This made programming much easier and more efficient and paved the way for the development of high-level programming languages like C, Java, and Python, that are more abstract and easier to learn and use. Today, machine code is still used by computers during certain stages of booting, interrupt handling, and other low-level functions. While applications and operating systems are typically written in higher-level languages, they are eventually compiled into machine code that the CPU can execute. The process of translating high-level code into machine code is called compilation or, in the case of interpreted languages, execution. In summary, the term "machine code" refers to the fundamental language that computers use to execute instructions, and its origin lies in the earliest days of computing when there were no higher-level programming languages available.