Chapter 1:

Data Storage

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc.

 Chapter 1: Data Storage

• 1.1 Bits and Their Storage

• 1.2 Representing Information as Bit Patterns
• 1.3 The Binary System
• 1.4 Storing Integers
• 1.5 Storing Fractions

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 1-2

 Bits and Bit Patterns

• Bit: Binary Digit (0 or 1)

• Bit Patterns are used to represent information
– Numbers
– Text characters
– Images
– Sound

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 1-3

 Boolean Operations

• Boolean Operation: An operation that

manipulates one or more true/false values
• Specific operations
– AND
– OR
– XOR (exclusive or)
– NOT

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 1-4

 Figure 1.1 The possible input and output
values of Boolean operations AND, OR,
and XOR (exclusive or)

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 1-5

 Gates

• 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)

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 1-6

 Figure 1.2 A pictorial representation of AND,
OR, XOR, and NOT gates as well as their input
and output values

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 1-7

 Examples

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 0-8

 Flip-flops

• 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

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 1-9

 S-R Flip flop

• The flip-flop is a bistable device. It exists in

one of two states and, in the absence of
input, remains in that state. Thus, the flip-
flop can function as a 1-bit memory.
• The flip-flop has two outputs, which are
always the complements of each other.

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 0-10

 S-R Flip flop

S – set the value of Q

R – reset the value back to 0

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 0-11

 Set circuit to 1

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 0-12

 Reset circuit – step 1

If S=1 and R=1 then circuit is in an undefined state

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 0-13

 Reset circuit - step 2

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 0-14

 Figure 1.3 A simple flip-flop circuit

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 1-15

 Figure 1.4 Setting the output of a flip-
flop to 1

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 1-16

 Figure 1.4 Setting the output of a flip-
flop to 1 (continued)

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 1-17

 Figure 1.4 Setting the output of a flip-
flop to 1 (continued)

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 1-18

 Figure 1.5 Another way of
constructing a flip-flop

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 1-19

 Storage
• Registers
– A register is used within a processor to
temporarily hold data/instruction or address.
– Flip-flops used in building a register. An n-bit
register will need n flip-flops.
• Main Memory
• Secondary Storage

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 0-20

 Main Memory Cells

• Cell: A unit of main memory (typically 8 bits

which is one byte)
– Most significant bit: the bit at the left (high-
order) end of the conceptual row of bits in a
memory cell
– Least significant bit: the bit at the right (low-
order) end of the conceptual row of bits in a
memory cell

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 1-21

 Figure 1.7 The organization of a
byte-size memory cell

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 1-22

 Main Memory Addresses

• 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.

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 1-23

 Figure 1.8 Memory cells arranged by
address

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 1-24

 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

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 1-25

 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

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 1-26

 Mass Storage

• Additional devices:
– Magnetic disks – Magnetic tape
– CDs – Flash drives
– DVDs – Solid-state disks
• Advantages over main memory
– Less volatility
– Larger storage capacities
– Low cost
– In many cases can be removed

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 1-27

 Figure 1.9 A magnetic disk storage
system

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 1-28

 Figure 1.10 CD storage

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 1-29

 Flash Drives
• Flash Memory – circuits that traps
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

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 1-30

 Data Representation

On a computer all data is stored using only 1s and

0s. This is not a limitation as shown in the following
table:
Number unique bit patterns Number of unique bit
of bits patterns
1 0, 1 2 or 21
2 00, 01, 10, 11 4 or 22
3 000, 001, 010, 011, 8 or 23
100, 101, 110, 111
32 232 or 4,294,967,296
n 2n

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 0-31

 Data Representation cont’d

• A given bit pattern may mean different

things depending on how it is interpreted

• We cannot say what a bit pattern

represents until we are told how to
interpret the code

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 0-32

 Representing Text

Each symbol in the language can be represented

as a sequence of bits.
English Language symbols Number of symbols

Digits ‘0’ to ‘9’ 10

Lower case letters ‘a’ to ‘z’ 26
Upper case letters ‘A’ to ‘Z’ 26
Special characters @,>( 31
TOTAL 93
A minimum of 93 bit patterns needed:
26 = 64 27=128. A minimum of 7 bits needed.

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 0-33

 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 world wide, 16-bits
for world’s commonly used languages

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 1-34

 Ordered Character Set
In ASCII the numeric order of the representation of
the letters corresponds with their alphabetic order.
Symbol ASCII code (decimal)
‘0’ to ‘9’ 48 - 57
‘A’ to ‘Z’ 65 - 90
‘a’ to ‘z’ 97 - 122

‘A’ < ‘H’ since ‘A’ precedes ‘H’ in the character set
‘9’ > ‘2’ since ‘2’ precedes ‘9’ in the character set
This facilitates sorting and searching

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 0-35

 Figure 1.11 The message “Hello.” in
ASCII or UTF-8 encoding

Convert COMP1600 to ASCII

Symbol Decimal Binary
C 67 01000011
O 79 01001111
M 77 01001101
P 80 01010000
1 49 00110001
6 53 00110110
0 48 00110000
0 48 00110000

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 1-36

 • ASCII – American Standard Code for
Information Interchange

• UTF – Unicode Translatioin Format

Unicode Transformation
Format

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 0-37

 Hexadecimal Notation

• Hexadecimal notation: A shorthand

notation for long bit patterns
– Divides a pattern into groups of four bits each
– Represents each group by a single symbol
• Example: 10100011 becomes A3

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 1-38

 Figure 1.6 The hexadecimal coding
system

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 1-39

 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

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 1-40

 Representing Images

• Bit map techniques

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

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 1-41

 Representing Sound

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

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 1-42

 Figure 1.12 The sound wave represented by the
sequence 0, 1.5, 2.0, 1.5, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, 3.0, 0

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 1-43

 The Binary System

The traditional decimal system is based

on powers of ten.

The Binary system is based on powers

of two.

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 1-44

 Figure 1.13 The base ten and binary
systems

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 1-45

 Figure 1.14 Decoding the binary
representation 100101

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 1-46

 Figure 1.15 An algorithm for finding the
binary representation of a positive integer

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 1-47

 Figure 1.16 Applying the algorithm in
Figure 1.15 to obtain the binary
representation of thirteen

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 1-48

 Figure 1.17 The binary addition facts

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 1-49

 Figure 1.18 Decoding the binary
representation 101.101

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 1-50

 Storing Integers

• Sign + magnitude: the most significant bit

represents the sign. The remaining bits
represent the magnitude
• Two’s complement notation: The most
popular means of representing integer
values
• Both can suffer from overflow errors

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 1-51

 Figure 1.19 Two’s complement
notation systems

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 1-52

 Figure 1.20 Coding the value -6 in two’s
complement notation using four bits

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 1-53

 Figure 1.21 Addition problems converted
to two’s complement notation

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 1-54

 Storing Fractions

• Floating-point Notation: Consists of a

sign bit, an exponent field and a significand
field.
• Related topics include
– Normalized form
– Truncation errors

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 1-55

 Figure 1.24 Floating-point notation
components

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 1-56

 Figure 1.25 Encoding the value 2 5⁄8

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc. 1-57

 End
of
Chapter

Copyright © 2015 Pearson Education, Inc.