About Lesson
Lecture # 4: “How Computers Represent Data”
Storage Devices: Magnetic Storage Devices, Optical Storage Devices, Solid State Storage Devices, and Data Read & Write Processes.
Additional Resources: Web Blogs, YouTube Videos, Publications
By the end of this lecture, students will be able to:
- Understand Data Representation and Signal Types:
- Define data representation and its importance in computing.
- Differentiate between analog and digital signals.
- Explain why digital signals are preferred in computers.
- Explain the Binary System:
- Define the binary system and its significance in computer data representation.
- Explain how binary digits (bits) are used as the fundamental building blocks of data.
- Describe the concept of data conversion from human language to machine language (binary).
- Describe Different Number Systems:
- Identify and explain the Decimal, Binary, Octal, and Hexadecimal number systems.
- Describe the base or radix of each number system and its use in computing.
- Provide examples of how each number system is used to represent different quantities.
- Understand Bits and Bytes:
- Define a bit and a byte and explain their roles in data representation.
- Explain how bits are grouped to form bytes and how bytes represent larger data units.
- Describe data measurement units such as kilobytes (KB), megabytes (MB), and gigabytes (GB).
- Explain Text Codes and Their Applications:
- Describe text codes and their use in representing alphabets, punctuation, and symbols in binary form.
- Identify and explain popular text code systems such as BCD, ASCII, EBCDIC, and Unicode.
- Provide examples of how text codes are used to encode and decode text data.
These learning objectives aim to provide a comprehensive understanding of how computers represent data, covering essential concepts such as signal types, number systems, bits and bytes, and text codes. This foundational knowledge is crucial for comprehending more advanced topics in computing and ICT.