Objectives

• Define the terms bit, nibble, byte, kibibyte, mebibyte,

gibibyte, tebibyte
• Understand that data needs to be converted into a
binary format to be processed by a computer
• Convert positive denary whole numbers (0-255) into
8-bit binary numbers and vice versa
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Unit 2 Data

Starter
• What is this symbol?
• What numbers is it
made from?
• How many states does
it control?
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Understanding binary
• Computers understand only two states: power on, or
power off
• This is represented by
switches, and computers
are essentially calculators
made up of billions
of switches
• Power on = 1
• Power off = 0
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Unit 2 Data

Binary number system

• Computers use a binary number system consisting
of only 0s and 1s
• Everything that a computer needs to process must be
converted into a binary format
• This format is used for storing numbers, text, sound, graphics
and program instructions
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Creating a circuit
• Computers comprise billions of switches to turn
current on and off
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Circuits
• Use the keywords below to explain how this
electrical circuit works:

+
_

Battery Switch Lamp

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Bits and bytes

• Many units are used for data storage in computers
• 1 bit = a single 0 or 1
• 1 nibble = 4 bits (half a byte)
• 1 byte = 8 bits = 1 character of text
• 1 KiB (kibibyte) = 1024 bytes
• 1 MiB (mebibyte) = 1024 KiB or 1024x1024 bytes
• 1 GiB (gibibyte) = 1024 MiB
• 1 TiB (tebibyte) = 1024 GiB

• Make a mnemonic for k, M, G and T

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Units
• One suggestion

• Kites – kilo
• Make - mega
• Great – giga
• Toys – tera
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A sense of scale
File Size
One character of text 1 byte
A full page of text 30 KiB
One small digital colour photograph 3 MiB
Music CD capacity 650 MiB
DVD capacity 4.5 GiB
Hard disk capacity 1 TiB
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Binary representation
• How many combinations or states can each of the
number of switches given produce?
Number of Switches (Bits) Possible combinations or states
1 2
2 4
3
4
5
6
7
8
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Binary representation
Number of Switches (Bits) Possible combinations or states
1 2
2 4
3 8
4 16
5 32
6 64
7 128
8 256
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Binary and denary number

systems
• Denary is a base 10 number system with 10 digits 0-9
• Why do we usually use 10 digits?

• Binary is a base 2 number system with 2 digits,

0 and 1
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Numbers with the denary system

Thousands, Hundreds, Tens and Units

1000 100 10 1
2 7 0 3
2x1000 + 7x100 + 0x10 + 3x1 = 2703
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Binary works in exactly the

same way

128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1
1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0
1x128 + 1x16 + 1x4 + 1x2 =?
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Binary to denary conversion

• What is:

128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1
0 0 1 1 1 0 0 1
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Most and least significant bit

• The most significant bit (MSB) is the bit with the
largest value
• This is the bit that is furthest to the left

• The least significant bit (LSB) is the bit with the

smallest value
• This is the bit that is furthest to the right

128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1
1 0 0 1 1 1 0 1
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Representing values
• Consider the same byte value 0011 1001
• This is represented in denary as 57
• As an electrical circuit this could be represented as:

0 0 1 1 1 0 0 1
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Worksheet 1
• Complete Task 1 on Worksheet 1
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Denary to binary
• How do you convert 28 to binary?
• Method
• Working right to left, write out the numbers 1, 2, 4, 8 and so
on, doubling each time to 128

128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1
0 0 0 1 1 1 0 0
• 128, 64 and 32 are all greater than 28, so put a zero for these
• Put a 1 in the 16 column, 28-16=12
• Put a 1 in the 8 column, 12-8 = 4
• Put a 1 in the 4 column, 4-4=0 so put zero in other columns
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Representing large integers

• 1 byte (8 bits) can represent the numbers between
0 (0000 0000) and 255 (1111 1111)

28 – 1 = 255
• What is the largest number that can be held in 16 bits?
• What is the largest number that can be held in 32 bits?
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Larger numbers
• The largest number that can be held with 16 bits is:
• 216 – 1 =
• 65 536 – 1 =
• 65 535
• (The range of numbers from 0 to 65 535 can be stored in a
16 bit number)
• The largest number that can be held with 32 bits is:
• 232 – 1 =
• 4 294 967 296 – 1 =
• 4 294 967 295
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Unit 2 Data

Representing large integers

• Computers used to use two bytes to represent
an integer
• Older versions of Microsoft Excel used to have only
65,536 rows (from 1 to 65,536)
• The rows will have been addressed with a two byte integer

• Nowadays, they mostly use four bytes

• Programmers need to consider the maximum numbers that
can be stored by the type of integer they are using
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Worksheet 1
• Complete Task 2 on Worksheet 1
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Plenary
• In pairs:
• Which numbers are stored in one bit?
• How many bits are there in a nibble and a byte?
• What are the units after a kibibyte?
• What is zero in binary?
• What is 255 in binary?
• What is 39 in binary?
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Plenary
• In pairs:
• Which numbers are stored in one bit? 0 and 1
• How many bits are there in a nibble and a byte?
Nibble = 4 bits, byte = 8 bits
• What are the units after a kibibyte?
mebibyte, gibibyte, tebibyte
• What is zero as an 8 bit binary number? 0000 0000
• What is 255 in binary? 1111 1111
• What is 39 as an 8 bit binary number? 0010 0111
Storage units and binary numbers
Unit 2 Data

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