What is the term for the machine code language that computers use?

Study for the SQA Higher Computing Science Exam with flashcards and multiple choice questions. Each question offers hints and explanations. Prepare effectively for your exam!

The correct term for the machine code language that computers use is low-level language. Low-level languages are fundamentally closest to the hardware and are often referred to as machine languages or assembly languages. These languages provide a way for programmers to write instructions that the computer's hardware can understand directly.

Machine code is a binary representation of the instructions that a computer's CPU executes, consisting of 1s and 0s. Low-level languages allow for efficient manipulation of hardware resources and have a direct correlation to the architecture of the physical machine.

High-level languages, in contrast, are designed to be more easily understandable and user-friendly, allowing developers to write instructions without needing to manage the specifics of the hardware. Assembly language is a specific type of low-level language that uses mnemonics and symbols to represent machine code instructions, but it is not the same as machine code itself. Script languages typically provide a higher level of abstraction and facilitate automation of tasks without the need for detailed memory management that low-level languages require.

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