Minecraft wiki entry for Transmission, associated text: A binary encoding consists of multiple digital lines run in parallel, with each line representing a different digit in a single binary number. For example, three lines might individually represent binary 001 (decimal 1), binary 010 (decimal 2), and binary 100 (decimal 4), allowing them together to represent any value from decimal 0 to 7 (by summing the represented values of the powered lines). An individual digital line of a binary transmission is referred to by the value it can add to the total number (for example, the 1-line, the 2-line, the 4-line, the 8-line, the 16-line, etc.)