AND, OR, NOT Basic Gates
A complete reference guide to the fundamental Boolean logic gates in Gately.
The Foundation of Digital Logic
Every complex digital system on the planet—from calculators to modern smartphones—relies heavily on basic logic gates. Understanding how these elementary components behave is critical to mastering the Gately visual logic editor.
The AND Gate
The AND gate is an operation that evaluates to true if and only if all of its inputs are true.
- Symbol: A D-shaped component with straight back and curved front.
- Truth behavior: Think of it like a strict bouncer at a club. You need both an ID AND a ticket to enter. If one is missing, output is
0.
Try flipping both switches ON to watch the logic pass mathematically to completion!
The OR Gate
The OR gate provides a true output when at least one of its inputs is true.
- Symbol: A shield-shaped component with a curved back.
- Truth behavior: Think of it like a multiple-choice question where choosing any correct answer gives you the point. If
Input AORInput Bis ON, the output is1.
The NOT Gate (Inverter)
The NOT gate simply reverses the input signal. It is the only gate with practically a single input and output.
- Symbol: A small triangle pointing right, followed by a slight circular bubble (representing inversion).
- Truth behavior: It fundamentally alters reality. If you input
1, it outputs0. If you input0, it outputs1.
Combining Gates
You can assemble these three fundamental primitives to construct compound gates (like NAND, XOR, XNOR). For instance, stringing an AND gate directly into a NOT gate effectively performs the NAND operation!
“In classical computing architectures, all complex logic can ultimately be reduced into interconnected strings of NAND operations.”