Why aren't EXE's in binary?

Question

Why is it that if you open up an EXE in a hex editor, you will see all sorts of things. If computers only understand binary then shouldn\'t there only be 2 possible symbols

Answer 1

The hexadecimal values are interpreted binary values in memory. The software only make it a bit more readable to human beings.

0000 = 0
0001 = 1
0010 = 2
0011 = 3
0100 = 4
0101 = 5
0110 = 6
0111 = 7
1000 = 8
1001 = 9
1010 = 10 A
1011 = 11 B
1100 = 12 C
1101 = 13 D
1110 = 14 E
1111 = 15 F