Chapter Four

Data Representation in Computer

Introduction to computer application

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Objectives:

To understand different number systems

To understand conversion between different number
systems
To understand how to apply arithmetic operations on
binary number systems
To know how to represent signed and unsigned numbers
To know different data coding systems and unit of data
representation
To understand how really data represented, flow, stored
and processed inside the computer

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Data Representation
Data represented in a computer in the form of code which
can have a corresponding electrical signal
Data is represented in a way as series of electrical switches
in arranged manner
Data stored, processed or communicated within a
computer system in different units like bit, byte and word
Bit:
 the smallest unit of data representation
 A single element in a computers which has only two possible

states, 0 and 1 (indicates OFF and ON respectively)

 Stands for Binary Digit

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Cont.
Byte:
 the basic unit of data representation
 Commonly contains 8 bits (can represent 256 characters)

 Represent a character

 Used as a unit of measurement in a computer memory, processing unit, external

storage and communication

 Stands for Binary Digit

Word:
 The number of bits that a computer processes at a time or a transmission media
transmits at a time
 Is a combination of bytes (1, 2, 3 or 4 based on the capacity of the computer)

 Word length is usually expressed in bits

 The large the word length a computer has the more powerful and faster it is.

 Bytes can store/transmit information but, slow in speed

 Example: 8, 16, 32 and 64 bit operating system computers

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Cont.
Data Encoding Techniques
A method of representing characters in any language in a
computer system
The most common data encoding techniques are: ASCII-7,
ASCII, BCD, EBCDIC and UNICODE.
ASCII-7:
 American Standard Code for Information Interchange
 Uses 7 bits to re[present a character

 128 different characters can be coded by using this technique

(0000000 - 1111111)
 It has Zone and Digit Positions

 Used widely before the introduction of ASCII-8

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Cont.
 Example:

ASCII:
 Referred as ASCII-8 or Extended ASCII
 Most widely used type of coding scheme for micro computers

 Uses 8 bits to represent a character

 Can represent 256 different symbols (00000000 - 11111111)

 No Zone and Digit positions in ASCII

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Cont.
Example:

BCD:
 Binary Coded Decimal
 Also called packet decimal

 Uses 6 bits to code characters

 Has Zone and Digit Positions

 Encode decimal numbers in which each digit is represented by its own binary sequence

 used in most early IBM computers

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Cont.
 Example:

EBCDIC:
 Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code
 Uses 8 bits to represent a character (00000000 - 11111111)
 Accommodates to code 256 different characters
 Standard coding schema for large computers
 Has Zone and Digit
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Cont.
 Example:

UNICODE:
 provide a single character set that covers the language of the world & a small number of machine
friendly forms and schemes
 Designed for best interoperability with ASCII & ISO-8859-1

 Covers all the characters of the world

 Preferred character set for internet (HTML and XML)

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Cont.

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Number System

• A writing system for expressing numbers

• A set of symbols used for counting
• Example:
– Decimal Number systems

– Binary Number systems

– Octal Number systems

– Hexadecimal Number Systems

• The value of each digit in a number can be determined using:

− The digit (Roman Number Systems)
− The position of the digit in the number (weight a base associated with it)
− The base of the number system
• Base is the total number of the digits available in the number
system
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Cont.
 Decimal Number System
 Common and widely used number system
 Is based on ten different digits (Symbols)
 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9
 Inconvenient for representing data in computer
 Each position represents a power of the base (10)
 Binary Number Systems
 Based on two different digits
 0 and 1
 Has similar nature with electronic devices (two elementary states)
 Convenient to represent data in computers
 Each position represents a power of the base (2)

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Cont.
 Octal Number System
 Is based on eight different digits (Symbols)
 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7
 Same with decimals from 0 to 7
 Sometimes convenient since many computer operations are based on bytes
 Each position represents a power of the base (8)
 Hexadecimal Number Systems
 Based on sixteen different digits
 0, 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E and F
 Same with decimals from 0 to 9
 Convenient to represent groups of 4 bits
 Used for computation and memory adresses
 Each position represents a power of the base (16)

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Coding Method

 Conversion from Decimal to other base B

 Divide the number in decimal by the base B

 Find/record the remainder

 Divide the result by the base B

 Find/record the reminder

 Repeat it until the result is 0

 Concatenate the reminders starting from the last up to the first

 Conversion from base B to Decimal

– Determine the positional value of each digit

– Multiply the obtained positional value by the corresponding digit

– Sum the products

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Cont.
 Conversion from Binary to Octal
– Divide the binary digits into groups of 3 (start from the right)

– Convert each group of three binary digits to one octal digit

 Conversion from Binary to Hexadecimal

– Divide the binary digits into groups of 4(start from the right)
– Convert each group of four binary digits to one hexadecimal digit/symbol
 Conversion from Octal to Binary
– Convert each octal digit into a 3 digit binary number
– Combine all the resulting binary groups into a single binary number

 Conversion from Hexadecimal to Binary

– Convert each hexadecimal digit into a 4 digit binary number
– Combine all the resulting binary groups into a single binary number
 Conversion from hexadecimal to octal
- converting to binary and then to octal
 Conversion from octal to hexadecimal
-converting to binary
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Cont.
Conversion from Octal to Decimal
Conversion from Decimal to Octal
Conversion from Decimal to Hexadecimal
Conversion from Hexadecimal to Decimal

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Cont.

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 Cont.
Binary Arithmetic (Binary Computation)
Binary Addition:
 Operates by the same rule as decimal addition
 It is simple

 Carry to the next higher order position when the sum is decimal 2, that is binary
10.
 Rules:
 0+0 = 0

 0+1 = 1

 1+0 = 1

 1+1 = 0 carry 1 to the next position

 1+1+1 = 1 carry 1 to the next position

 Example:
 110 + 111 = 1101 and 100101 + 11111 = 1000100

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Cont.

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Cont.
Binary Division:
 Similar to decimal division
 The process of dividing one binary number by another
 Based on the rules for binary subtraction & multiplication
 Example: 1111101 ÷ 11001 = ?
 1111101 | 11001

11001 101
11001
11001
00000

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