1.1 InfoRepr&Multimedia.data_representation

Question 1

What is the binary number system?

Answer 1

A base-two system using only the digits 0 and 1

Question 2

What is a bit?

Answer 2

A binary digit, the smallest unit of data in computing.

Question 3

What is one’s complement?

Answer 3

A method of representing negative numbers by inverting all bits in a binary number.

Question 4

What is two’s complement?

Answer 4

A method of representing negative numbers by inverting all bits and adding 1 to the right-most position.

Question 5

What is sign and magnitude representation?

Answer 5

A binary number system where the left-most bit indicates the sign (0 = positive, 1 = negative).

Question 6

What is hexadecimal?

Answer 6

A base-16 number system using digits 0-9 and letters A-F.

Question 7

What is a memory dump?

Answer 7

The contents of a computer’s memory output to a screen or printer.

Question 8

What is binary-coded decimal (BCD)?

Answer 8

A system that represents each decimal digit using 4 bits.

Question 9

What is ASCII?

Answer 9

A character encoding system for keyboard characters and control codes.

Question 10

What is a character set?

Answer 10

A list of characters defined by computer hardware and software with a coding method for interpretation.

Question 11

What is Unicode?

Answer 11

A universal character encoding system supporting all world languages (first 128 characters match ASCII).

Question 12

How does one’s complement work?

Answer 12

Each binary digit is inverted (0 becomes 1, 1 becomes 0) to represent negative numbers.

Question 13

How does two’s complement work?

Answer 13

Each binary digit is inverted, and 1 is added to the right-most bit.

Question 14

Why is two’s complement preferred to one’s complement?

Answer 14

It simplifies binary addition and subtraction.

Question 15

What are the weightings for an 8-bit two’s complement representation?

Answer 15

-128, 64, 32, 16, 8, 4, 2, 1

Question 16

What is the smallest unit of memory in a computer?

Answer 16

A byte

Question 17

What are common multiples of a byte?

Answer 17

16-bit, 32-bit, and other multiples of 8

Question 18

How many bytes are in 1 KB (kilobyte) using the SI system?

Answer 18

1000

Question 19

How many bytes are in 1 MB (megabyte) using the SI system?

Answer 19

1,000,000 bytes.

Question 20

How many bytes are in 1 GB (gigabyte) using the SI system?

Answer 20

1,000,000,000 bytes

Question 21

How many bytes are in 1 TB (terabyte) using the SI system?

Answer 21

1,000,000,000,000 bytes

Question 22

How many bytes are in 1 PB (petabyte) using the SI system?

Answer 22

1,000,000,000,000,000 bytes

Question 23

What is the IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) binary system for memory measurement?

Answer 23

A system based on powers of 2 rather than 10

Question 24

How many bytes are in 1 KiB (kibibyte) using the IEC system?

Answer 24

1,024 bytes (2¹⁰)

Question 25

How many bytes are in 1 MiB (mebibyte) using the IEC system?

Answer 25

1,048,576 bytes (2²⁰)

Question 26

How many bytes are in 1 GiB (gibibyte) using the IEC system?

Answer 26

1,073,741,824 bytes (2³⁰)

Question 27

How many bytes are in 1 TiB (tebibyte) using the IEC system?

Answer 27

1,099,511,627,776 bytes (2⁴⁰)

Question 28

How many bytes are in 1 PiB (pebibyte) using the IEC system?

Answer 28

1,125,899,906,842,624 bytes (2⁵⁰)

Question 29

What system should be used to measure internal memory like RAM?

Answer 29

The IEC binary system

Question 30

How many bytes are in 64 GiB of RAM?

Answer 30

64 × 2³⁰ = 68,719,476,736 bytes

Question 31

Why is hexadecimal often used instead of binary?

Answer 31

It is easier to read and manage compared to long binary sequences.

Question 32

What is a memory dump?

Answer 32

The process of outputting the contents of memory to a screen or printer.

Question 33

Why is hexadecimal used in memory dumps?

Answer 33

It makes fault tracing and debugging easier for developers.

Question 34

What is Binary-Coded Decimal (BCD)?

Answer 34

A number system where each denary digit is represented by a 4-bit binary equivalent.

Question 35

Where is BCD commonly used?

Answer 35

In calculator and clock displays for easy conversion between computer output and denary.

Question 36

Why is Binary-Coded Decimal (BCD) used for monetary values?

Answer 36

It ensures exact representation of decimal values, preventing significant errors in accounting.

Question 37

How does BCD handle sums that produce non-denary digits?

Answer 37

By adding 0110 (denary 6) when necessary to maintain correct decimal representation.

Question 38

What does ASCII stand for?

Answer 38

American Standard Code for Information Interchange.

Question 39

When was ASCII originally set up and later updated?

Answer 39

Set up in 1963 and updated in 1986

Question 40

How many bits are used in the standard ASCII code?

Answer 40

7-bit codes (0 to 127 in denary or 0 to 7F in hexadecimal)

Question 41

What does the ASCII character set include?

Answer 41

Letters, numbers, standard keyboard characters, and 32 control codes

Question 42

How does the ASCII code distinguish between uppercase and lowercase letters?

Answer 42

The sixth bit changes from 1 (lowercase) to 0 (uppercase), making conversion easy.

Question 43

What is Extended ASCII, and why was it introduced?

Answer 43

It uses 8-bit codes (128 to 255 in denary or 80 to FF in hex) to support non-English characters and drawing symbols.

Question 44

What is Unicode, and why was it developed?

Answer 44

A coding system designed to represent all languages globally, overcoming ASCII’s limitations.

Question 45

How does Unicode differ from ASCII in terms of storage?

Answer 45

Unicode supports up to four bytes per character, while ASCII uses only one byte.

Question 46

What are the five goals of Unicode Version 1.0 (1991)?

Answer 46

- Universal standard covering all languages and writing systems. - More efficient than ASCII. - Uniform 16-bit or 32-bit encoding. - Unambiguous encoding for consistent character representation. - Reserved code space for private character assignments.

Question 47

How does Unicode benefit languages like Russian, Greek, and Japanese?

Answer 47

It allows these languages to be represented in a computer, supporting diverse writing systems.