A-level Computing 2009/AQA/Problem Solving, Programming, Data Representation and Practical Exercise/Fundamentals of Data Representation/Bit patterns in a computer

Binary number system The language that a computer understands is very simple, so simple that it only has 2 different numbers: 1 and 0. This is called Binary. Everything you see on a computer, images, sounds, games, text, videos, spreadsheets, websites etc. Whatever it is, it will be stored as a string of ones and zeroes. center|monochrome image of a smiley face Bit a standard unit to measure computer memory, consisting of a value that is either 1 or 0 Byte a standard unit to measure computer memory, usually consisting of 8 bits. e.g. 10101011 1 Exercise: Bit patterns in a Computer How do computers store data? as binary values, using a pattern of 1s and 0s What sort of data can be stored in binary? Video Sound Picture Text Code Spreadsheet Game etc What does the following binary string represent: 10011100 This could be anything: sound data picture data text ASCII for œ unsigned integer = 156 video data etc How many bits in a byte? 8, but it is originally the amount of bits used to represent a character How many bits in 7 bytes? 7 * 8 = 56