Data Representation

Number Systems

Binary System

 Base 2 number system

 It has two possible values only (0 and 1)

 0 represents OFF, and 1 represents ON

 A point to be noted is that the most left bit is called the MSB (Most
Significant Bit)

Denary System

 Base 10 number system

 Has values from 0 to 9

Hexadecimal (aka Hex)

 Base 16 number system

 Have values from 0 to 9 followed by A to F

 A represents 10, B represents 11 and so on until 15, which is F

Number Conversions

Converting Binary to Denary

 Place the binary value in columns of 2 raised to the power of the

number of values from the right starting from 0. e.g. For binary
value 11101110, place it in a table like this:

12 6 3 1
8 4 2 1
8 4 2 6

1 1 1 0 1 1 1 0

 As can be seen it starts from 1 and then goes to 128 from left to
right

 Now values with 1 are to be added together, giving the final answer,
as for the example, it is 128 + 64 + 32 + 8 + 4 + 2 = 238

Converting Denary to Binary

  Take the value and successively divide it by 2, creating a table like
follows:

14
2
2

Remainde
2 71 0
r:

Remainde
2 35 1
r:

Remainde
2 17 1
r:

Remainde
2 8 1
r:

Remainde
2 4 0
r:

Remainde
2 2 0
r:

Remainde
2 1 0
r:

Remainde
0 1
r:

 Note that when the value itself is not divisible by 2, it is divided by

the previous value of the current number and 1 is added to the
remainder column for that specific number

 When you reach 0, the remainder has to be read from bottom to top
giving us the binary value ( as in this case, it is 1 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 )

Converting Hexadecimal to Binary

 Separate each value from each other and convert them to denary

 Each separate denary value to be converted to binary

 All the binary values to be merged together

e.g.
Explain

Hexadecimal : 2 1 F D

Denary :2 1 15 13

Binary : 0010 0001 1111 1101

Final Answer: 0010000111111101

Converting Binary to Hexadecimal

 Divide the binary value into groups of 4 starting from the right. If at
the end, the last division is less than 4, add 0s until it reaches 4

 For each group, find the denary value as shown above, and then
convert each denary value to its corresponding hexadecimal value
(if less than 10, then itself, else, 10 is A, 11 is B, 12 is C, 13 is D, 14
is E and 15 is F).

 After conversion, just put all the hexadecimal values in order to get
the final answer

Explain

Given Value : 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 1

When grouped: 10 0001 1111 1101

After 2 values added to left: 0010 0001 1111 1101

After Conversion to Denary: 2 1 15 13

Denary to Hexadecimal: 21FD

Converting Hexadecimal to Denary

 Convert the value to binary as shown above, and then convert the
final answer to denary

Converting Denary to Hexadecimal

 Convert the value to binary, and then convert it to hexadecimal as

explained above

Binary Calculations
  Binary values are not added the way denary values are added, as
when adding 1 and 1, we cannot write two because it doesn’t exist
in binary.

Points to Note:

 0+0=0

 1+0/0+1=1

 1 + 1 = 0 (1 carry)

 1 + 1 + 1 = 1 (1 carry)

Overflow

 When adding two values, if the solution exceeds the limit of given
values, e.g., the solution has 9 bits, but the question had 8 bits per
value, the 9th bit (most left bit) is called overflow.

 This indicates that the memory doesn’t have enough space to store
the answer to the addition done in the previous part.

Steps to add Two Values (With Example)

 The values we will add are 1 1 0 1 1 1 0 and 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 0

1. Convert both the bytes into 8 bits (add zero to the left-hand
side to match them).

e.g., 1 1 0 1 1 1 0 would become 0 1 1 0 1 1 1 0

2. Add the values as follows with the points given above

Carry 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

Byte 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 1 0

Byte 2 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 0

OVERFLO
W

Soluti
1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0
on

Note: We move from RHS to LHS, and when adding values, we use the
rules given above. If the bit crosses the limit (overflows), we put the value
in brackets, denoting it is overflow.
iii. The solution would now be (1) 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0

Logical Shifts

 The logical shift means moving a binary value to the left or the right

 When doing a logical shift, keep in mind that the bit being emptied
is going to become 0

Explanation with Example

 Shifting 10101010 - 1 place left:

1. The furthest bit in the direction to be logically shifted is

removed ( in this case, one at the LHS is removed) - ==(if it
were two places, 2 bits would have been removed)==

2. Every bit is moved in given places to the given direction

( every bit is moved one place to the left in this case, and the
leftover bit in the right is marked 0, so 10101010 would
become 01010100)

Two’s Complement (Binary Numbers)

 Two’s complement is a method used to represent negative values in

binary. Here, the MSB ( Most Significant Bit) is replaced from 128 to -
128; thus, the range of values in a two’s complement byte is -128 to
127

Converting Binary Values to Two’s Complement

 Firstly, write the binary value and locate the first one from the right;
e.g., 1101100 would have the first one at the third position from the
right.

 Now, switch every value to the left of the first one located above
(not switching the one), e.g., the value in our example becomes
0010100, which is the two’s complement of itself.

Converting negative values to two complement

 Find the binary equivalent of the value ignoring the - sign

 Convert the binary value to two’s complement

 Make the MSB 1, if not already

Converting Two’s Complement Value to Denary:

 We do it the same way as a normal value is converted from binary

to denary; we only replace 128 with -12,8 e.g., for 1011101,0 we do
the:
 -
6 3 1
12 8 4 2 1
4 2 6
8

1 0 1 1 1 0 1 0

-128 + 32 + 16 + 8 + 2 = -70

Use of the Hexadecimal System

Examples:

 Defining colours in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)

 Media Access Control (MAC) addresses (a number that uniquely

identifies a device on a network)

 Assembly languages and machine code

 Memory Dumps

 Debugging (method to find errors in a program)

 Display error codes (numbers refer to the memory location of the

error)

 IP (Internet Protocol) addresses

Memory Dumps

 Hexadecimal is used when developing new software or when trying

to trace errors.

 Memory dump is when the memory contents are output to a printer

or monitor.

Assembly code and machine code (low-level languages)

 Computer memory is machine code/ assembly code

 Using hexadecimal makes writing code easier, faster, and less error-
prone than binary.

 Using machine code (binary) takes a long time to key in values and
is prone to errors.

Text, Sound and Images

ASCII
  The standard ASCII code character set consists of 7-bit code that
represents the letters, numbers and characters found on a standard
keyboard, together with 32 control codes

 Uppercase and lowercase characters have different ASCII values

 Every subsequent value in ASCII is the previous value + 1. e.g. “a”

is 97 in ASCII, “b” will be 98 (which is 97 + 1)

 Important ASCII values (in denary) to remember are as follows:

 0 is at 48

 A is at 65

 a is at 97

 ASCII uses one byte to store the value

 When the ASCII value of a character is converted to binary, it can be

seen that the sixth-bit changes from 1 to 0 when going from
lowercase to uppercase of a character, and the rest remains the
same. e.g.

Unicode

 ASCII does not contain all of the international languages thus,

Unicode is used to solve this problem

 The first 128 values are the same as ASCII.

 Unicode supports up to four bytes per character, storing multiple

languages and more data.

 To represent text in binary, a computer uses a character set,

a collection of characters and the corresponding binary
codes that represent them.

Sound

 Sound is analogue, and for it to be converted to digital form, it is

sampled

 The sound waves are sampled at regular time intervals where the
amplitude is measured. However, it cannot be measured precisely,
so approximate values are stored

How is Sound Recorded

  The amplitude of the sound wave is first determined at set time
intervals

 The value is converted to digital form

 Each sample of the sound wave is then encoded as a series of

binary digits

 A series of readings gives an approximate representation of the

sound wave

Sampling Resolution:

 The number of bits per sample is known as the sampling resolution

(aka bit depth)

 Increasing the sampling resolution increases the accuracy of the

sampled sound as more detail is stored about the amplitude of the
sound.

 Increasing the sampling resolution also increases the memory usage

of the file as more bits are being used to store the data.

Sampling Rate

 The sampling rate is the number of sound samples taken per

second, which is measured in Hertz (Hz)

 A higher sampling rate would allow more accurate sound as fewer

estimations will be done between samples.

Images

Bitmap Images

 Bitmap images are made up of pixels

 A bitmap image is stored in a computer as a series of binary

numbers

Colour Depth

 The number of bits representing each colour is called the colour

depth.

 An 8-bit colour depth means that each pixel can be one of 256
colours (because 2 to the power of 8 = 256)

 A 1-bit colour depth means each pixel can store one colour (because
2 to the power of 1 is 2) - ( This is done as the bit can either be 0 or
1, with 0 being white and 1 being black)
  Increasing colour depth increases the size of the file when storing an
image.

Image Resolution

 Image resolution refers to the number of pixels that make up an

image; for example, an image could contain 4096 × 3072 pixels.

 Photographs with a lower resolution have less detail than those with
a higher resolution.

 When a bitmap image is ‘ blurry ‘ or ‘ fizzy ’ due to having a low

amount of pixels in it or when zoomed, it is known as
being pixelated.

 High-resolution images use high amounts of memory as compared

to low-resolution ones.

Measurement of the Size of Computer Memories

 A binary digit is referred to as a BIT

 8 bits is a byte

 4 bits is a nibble

 Byte is used to measure memory size

IECB System (Most Common)

Name of memory No. of Equivalent Denary

size Bytes Value

1 kibibyte (1KiB) 210 1 024 bytes

1 mibibyte (1MiB) 220 1 048 576 bytes

1 gibibyte (1GiB) 230 1 073 741 824 bytes

1 099 511 627 776

1 tibibyte (1TiB) 240
bytes

1 125 899 906 842 624

1 pibibyte (1PiB) 250
bytes

Conventional System
 Name of memory No. of Equivalent Denary
size Bytes Value

1 kilobyte (1KB) 103 1 000 bytes

1 megabyte (1MB) 106 1 000 000 bytes

1 gigabyte (1GB) 109 1 000 000 000 bytes

1 000 000 000 000

1 terabyte (1TB) 1012
bytes

1 000 000 000 000 000

1 petabyte (1PB) 1015
bytes

Calculation of File Size

 The file size of an image is calculated as image resolution (in pixels)

× colour depth (in bits)

 The size of a mono sound file is calculated as sample rate (in Hz) ×
sample resolution (in bits) × length of sample (in seconds). (For a
stereo sound file, you would then multiply the result by two.)

File Types

Musical Instrument Digital Format (MIDI)

 Storage of music files

 A communications protocol that allows electronic musical

instruments to interact with each other

 Stored as a series of demands but no actual music notes

 Uses 8-bit serial transmission (asynchronous)

 Each MIDI command has a sequence of bytes:

o The first byte is the status byte – which informs the MIDI
device what function to perform

o Encoded in the status byte is the MIDI channel (operates on

16 different channels)

 Examples of MIDI commands:

o Note on/off: indicates that a key has been pressed

 o Key pressure: indicates how hard it has been pressed
(loudness of music)

 It needs a lot of memory storage

MP3

 It uses technology known as Audio Compression to convert music

and other sounds into an MP3 file format

 This compression reduces the normal file size by 90%

o Done using file compression algorithms, which use Perceptual

Music Shaping

o Removes sounds that the human ear cannot hear properly

o Certain sounds are removed without affecting the quality, too

much

 CD files are converted using File Compression Software

 Use lossy format as the original file is lost following the compression
algorithm

MP4

 This format allows the storage of multimedia files rather than just
sound

 Music, videos, photos and animations can be stored

 Videos could be streamed without losing any real discernible quality

Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG)

 JPEG is a file format used to reduce photographic file sizes

 Reducing picture resolution is changing the number of pixels per

centimetre

 When a photographic file undergoes compression, file size is

reduced

 JPEG will reduce the raw bitmap image by a factor between 5 and 15

Lossless and Lossy File Compression

Lossless File Compression

 All the data bits from the original file are reconstructed again when
the file is uncompressed.
  Important for files where the loss of data would be disastrous
(spreadsheet)

 An algorithm is used to compress data

 No data is lost

 Repeated patterns/text are grouped together in indexes

Run-Length Encoding

 It reduces the size of a string of adjacent, identical data (e.g.

repeated colours in an image)

 A repeating string is encoded into two values: the first value

represents the number of identical data items (e.g. characters), and
the second value represents the code of the data item (such as
ASCII code if it is a keyboard character), e.g. ‘aaaaabbbbccddddd’
becomes “05 97 04 98 02 99 05 100.”

 RLE is only effective where there is a long run of repeated units/bits

 One difficulty is that RLE compression isn't perfect for strings like
"cdcdcdcdcd". We use a flag to solve this; e.g., 255 can be made as
the flag. Now 255 will be put before every repeating value, e.g. our
previous example becomes 255 05 97 255 04 98 255 02 99 255 05
100 where 255 now indicates that the next character/set of
characters is approaching

Lossy File Compression

 The file compression algorithm eliminates unnecessary data bits like

in MP3 and JPEG formats.

 It is impossible to get the original file back once it is compressed

 Reduces file quality

 In this, the image's resolution and colour depth are reduced.