The kingdom of Qi is digital data in the hands of every human being - Mark 1:15 (NKJV)
Centuries before the first computer was ever invented, West Africans were already programmers who developed an advanced computing and mathematical system called sorcery or witchcraft by people who didn't understand the underlying science.
Opele divination chain is simply 1 byte. Megabytes and gigabytes are higher units of Opele, depending on how many times it is thrown on an opon Ifa divination tray.
The chain is made up of eight concave shells divided into two groups of four. Each group is representative of four cowrie shells, which implies that the eight shells are eight cowries.
Each concave shell has a front and a back corresponding to the split side and smooth side of a cowrie shell.
Each group of four shells has sixteen possible outcomes that are the sixteen principal ODU.
A shell, like a dice or cowrie, is a transistor whose front is 0 or off and back is 1 or on. Each group of four shells is therefore 4 bits (binary digits) and the eight shells are 8 bits.
Since 8 bits = 1 byte, each group of eight shells is 1/2 byte while the chain itself is equal to 1 byte. In computing, half byte is also called a nibble.
An ODU is a nibble or half a byte. The sixteen principal ODU are therefore equal to 1/2 byte x 16 = 8 bytes.
When the double line is substituted by 0 and the single line is replaced by 1 each ODU is 4 bits or 1/2 byte and the sixteen principal ODU are binary numbers.
Consequently, the sixteen principal ODU are:
Oyeku 0000
Okanran 0001
Otuurupon 0010
Owonrin 0011
Ika 0100
Ofun (Orangun) 0101
Iwori 0110
Osa 0111
Obara 1000
Odi 1001
Ose 1010
Otura 1011
Irosun 1100
Irete 1101
Ogunda 1110
Ogbe 1111
When converted from base 2 to base 10 the sixteen principal ODU are decimal numbers:
Oyeku 0
Okanran 1
Otuurupon 2
Owonrin 3
Ika 4
Ofun (Orangun) 5
Iwori 6
Osa 7
Obara 8
Odi 9
Ose 10
Otura 11
Irosun 12
Irete 13
Ogunda 14
Ogbe 15
Some Examples of how ODU Ifa is converted to decimal number:
1. Oyeku
0000 = 0x8 + 0x4 + 0x2 + 0x1
= 0
2. Iwori
0110 = 0x8 + 1x4 + 1x2 + 0x1
= 0 + 4 + 2 + 0
= 6
3. Otura
1011 = 1x8 + 0x4 + 1x2 + 1x1
= 8 + 0 + 2 + 1
= 11
Therefore, the sixteen principal ODU are Yoruba machine codes as well as a coded way of writing some numbers of the decimal numerical system.