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Introduction

Computers are designed to receive, store, manipulate and present data. This unit explains how computers do this, with reference to the examples of a PC, kitchen scales and a digital camera. In particular it explores the idea that the data in a computer represents something in the real world.

Learning Outcomes

After studying this unit you will:

  • know what all the terms highlighted in bold in the text mean;
  • know how the following types of data are represented in a computer, and what the limitations of such representations are: positive and negative integers; fractions; analogue physical quantities such as weight; true/false quantities; still pictures; text; moving pictures; sound;
  • know, at an introductory level, what data compression is and why it is useful;
  • know, at an introductory level, how input and output subsystems support the conversion of various types of information to and from data types usable by a computer;
  • describe what a computer program is and how it utilises the memory and the processor;
  • use a flowchart to describe the implementation of a given task;
  • perform calculations relating to file sizes for text, still images, moving images and sound;
  • convert between binary and denary representations for both positive and negative integers;
  • perform simple arithmetic operations on pairs of 8-bit binary numbers;
  • find the 2’s complement of a given binary number;
  • perform the NOT operation on 8-bit binary codes, and the AND, OR and XOR logic operations on pairs of 8-bit binary codes.
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