ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Adder-subtractor

Oh, hello there little one! Today we're going to talk about something called an adder-subtractor. Have you ever heard of it before? No? Well, that's okay, because we're going to learn about it together!

An adder-subtractor is a special kind of math machine that can add and subtract numbers. It works kind of like a calculator, but it's different because it's made up of little parts that all work together to solve math problems.

Let me break it down for you. Imagine you have a box with two holes in it. You can put marbles into the box through one hole, and take them out through the other hole. When you put marbles in, you're adding. When you take marbles out, you're subtracting.

An adder-subtractor is kind of like that box, but it's made of electronic parts instead of cardboard. When you want to add two numbers together, you put them into the adder-subtractor, and it does the math for you! It works by breaking each number down into a bunch of little bits, or electrical signals, and adding them up one by one.

When you want to subtract, the adder-subtractor works a little differently. It uses something called two's complement, which is a fancy way of saying that it flips all of the bits in the number and adds 1. This might sound confusing, but don't worry - the adder-subtractor knows what to do!

So there you have it, little one! An adder-subtractor is a machine that can do math, just like a calculator. But instead of using buttons, it uses tiny electronic parts that all work together to add and subtract numbers. Cool, huh?