ICT: Introduction to Communication Technology

For M.C.Qs

Chapter No. 01: Click here           
Chapter No. 02: Click here
                                                                                

Chapter 01

Bit: Binary Digit (0 or 1)

"Bit Patterns are used to represent information:
Numbers
Text characters
Images
Sound
And others"



Boolean Operation: 

"An operation that manipulates one or more true/false values."

Specific operations

AND

OR

XOR (exclusive or)

NOT


Gate: 
"A device that computes a Boolean operation."

  • Often implemented as (small) electronic circuits
  • Provide the building blocks from which computers are constructed
  • VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration)



Flip-flop: 
"A circuit built from gates that can store one bit."

One input line is used to set its stored value to 1

One input line is used to set its stored value to 0

While both input lines are 0, the most recently
stored value is preserved


Hexadecimal notation

"A shorthand notation for long bit patterns."

Divides a pattern into groups of four bits each

Represents each group with a single symbol

Example: 10100011 becomes A3



Cell: 

"A unit of main memory (typically 8 bits which is one byte)."

Most significant bit: is the bit at the left
(high-order) end of the conceptual row of bits
in a memory cell

Least significant bit: is the bit at the right
(low-order) end of the conceptual row of bits in
a memory cell


Address:

 A “name” that uniquely identifies one cell in the computer’s main memory
 
The names are actually numbers.

These numbers are assigned consecutively
starting at zero.

Numbering the cells in this manner associates
an order with the memory cells.


Memory Terminology

Random Access Memory (RAM):

"Memory in which individual cells can be easily accessed in any order."

Dynamic Memory (DRAM): 

"RAM composed of volatile memory"


Measuring Memory Capacity

Kilobyte: 210 bytes = 1024 bytes

Example: 3 KB = 3 times1024 bytes

Megabyte: 220 bytes = 1,048,576 bytes

Example: 3 MB = 3 times 1,048,576 bytes

Gigabyte: 230 bytes = 1,073,741,824 bytes

Example: 3 GB = 3 times 1,073,741,824 bytes



Mass Storage

Additional devices:

  • Magnetic disk
  • CDs
  • DVDs

Advantages over main memory

  • Less volatility
  • Larger storage capacities
  • Low cost
  • In many cases can be removed
  • Magnetic tape
  • Flash drives
  • Solid-state disks

Flash Drives

Flash Memory – circuits that trap electrons in tiny silicon dioxide chambers

  • Repeated erasing slowly damages the media
  • Mass storage of choice for:
  • Digital cameras Smartphones
  • SD Cards provide GBs of storage

Representing Text

Each character (letter, punctuation, etc.) is assigned a unique bit pattern.

ASCII: Uses patterns of 7-bits to represent most symbols used in written English text
ISO developed a number of 8-bit extensions to ASCII, each designed to accommodate a major language group

Unicode: Uses patterns up to 21-bits to represent the symbols used in languages
worldwide, 16-bits for the world’s commonly used languages


Representing Numeric Values

  • Binary notation: Uses bits to represent a number in base two.
  • Limitations of computer representations of numeric values.
  • Overflow: occurs when a value is too big to be represented.
  • Truncation: occurs when a value cannot be represented accurately.

Representing Images

Bit map techniques
Pixel: short for “picture element”
RGB
Luminance and chrominance
Vector techniques
Scalable
TrueType and PostScript



Representing Sound

Sampling techniques
Used for high-quality recordings
Records actual audio
MIDI
Used in music synthesizers
Records “musical score”


The Binary System

The traditional decimal system is based on powers of ten.

The Binary system is based on the powers of two.



Storing Integers

Two’s complement notation: The most popular means of representing integer
values.

Excess notation: Another means of representing integer values
Both can suffer from overflow errors



Storing Fractions

Floating-point Notation: Consists of a sign bit, a mantissa field, and an exponent
field.

Related topics include:
Normalized form
Truncation errors

Data and Programming

A programming language is a computer system created to allow humans to precisely express algorithms using a higher level of abstraction.



Getting Started with Python

Python: a popular programming language for applications, scientific computation, and an introductory language for students

Python is an interpreted language

Typing:

print('Hello, World!')

Results in:

Hello, World!


Variables

Variables: name values for later use Analogous to mathematic variables in
algebra.
Examples:
s = 'Hello, World!'
print(s)
my_integer = 5
my_floating_point = 26.2
my_Boolean = True
my_string = 'characters'
my_integer = 0xFF

Operators and Expressions


print(3 + 4)
# Prints 7

print(5 – 6) # Prints -1

print(7 * 8) # Prints 56

print(45 / 4)
# Prints 11.25

print(2 ** 10)
# Prints 1024

s = 'hello' + 'world'

s = s * 4

print(s)

Currency Conversion

# A converter for currency exchange.

USD_to_GBP = 0.66 # Today's exchange rate

GBP_sign = '\u00A3' # Unicode value for £

dollars = 1000 # Number dollars to convert

# Conversion calculations

pounds = dollars * USD_to_GBP

# Printing the results

print('Today, $' + str(dollars))

print('converts to ' + GBP_sign + str(pounds))

Debugging

Syntax errors:

print(5 +)

SyntaxError: invalid syntax

pront(5)

NameError: name 'pront' is not defined

Semantic errors

Incorrect expressions like:

total_pay = 40 + extra_hours * pay_rate

Runtime errors

Unintentional divide by zero


Data Compression
  • Lossy versus lossless
  • Run-length encoding
  • Frequency-dependent encoding (Huffman codes)
  • Relative encoding
  • Dictionary encoding (Includes adaptive dictionary encoding such as LZW encoding.)



Compressing Images

  • GIF: Good for cartoons
  • JPEG: Good for photographs
  • TIFF: Good for image archiving


Compressing Audio and Video

  • MPEG
  • High-definition television broadcast
  • Video conferencing
  • MP3
  • Temporal masking
  • Frequency masking


Communication Errors
  • Parity bits (even versus odd)
  • Check bytes
  • Error-correcting codes.


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