INTRODUCTION TO

NETWORKING

Data Formats
Objectives
Understand how data is
represented, and stored, inside a
computer.

Understand how data is

manipulated inside a computer.

Understand how we represent that

data externally for easier
understanding and manipulation by
humans
Perform data conversions.
Data Formats

■ Computers
– Process and store all forms of data in binary format.

■ Data formats
– Specifications for converting data into computer-usable form.
– Define the different ways human data may be represented, stored and
processed by a computer.
Digital vs. Analog

■ Computing systems are finite machines. They store a limited

amount of information, even if the limit is very big.

– The goal is to represent enough of the real world data to satisfy our
computational needs and our senses of sight and sound.
– The information can be represented in one or two ways: analog or
digital.
Digital vs. Analog

■ Analog data is a continuous representation, analogous to the

actual information it represents.

– For example, a mercury thermometer is an analog device. The mercury

rises in a continuous flow in the tube in direct proportion to the
temperature.
Digital vs. Analog

■ Digital data is a discrete representation, breaking the

information up into separate (discrete) elements.

– Computers cannot work with analog information directly, so there is a

need to digitise the analog information.
– This is done by breaking the analog information into pieces and
representing those pieces using binary digits.
Digital vs. Analog

■ Why digital signal?

– Both electronic signals (analog and digital) degrade as they move
down a line. The voltage of the signal fluctuates due to environmental
effects.
– As soon as an analog signal degrades, information is lost. Since any
voltage level within the range is valid, it is impossible to know that
the original signal was even changed.
– Digital signals jump sharply between two extremes (high and low
state). A digital signal can degrade quite a bit until the information is
lost, because any value over a certain threshold is considered high
value and below the threshold is considered low value.
Digital vs. Analog

■ You can still retrieve the information from a reasonably

degraded digital signal.
■ Periodically a digital signal is reclocked to regain its original
shape. As long as it is reclocked before too much degradation,
no information is lost.

1 1 Threshold
1 1 1 1 1 1
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Digital Signal
Digital Signal Degradation

Analog Signal Analog Signal Degradation

Binary Representation

■ Why binary representation (as opposed to decimal or octal,

etc..)?
– Because the devices that store and manage the digital data are far less
expensive and complex for binary representation.
– They are also far more reliable when they have to represent one out of
two possible values.
– Because the electronic signals are easier to maintain if they carry only
binary data.
Binary Representation

■ One bit can be either 0 or 1. Therefore, one bit can represent

only two outputs.
■ To represent more than two outputs, we need multiple bits.
Two bits can represent four outputs because there are four
combinations of 0 and 1 that can be made from two bits: 00,
01, 10,11.
■ In general, n bits can represent 2n outputs because there are 2n
combinations of 0 and 1 that can be made from n bits. Note
that every time we increase the number of bits by 1, we
double the number of things we can represent.
Binary Conversion

■ Decimal to Binary
– 2510 = 1 10012
– 14510 = 1001 00012
– 210 = 102

■ Binary to Decimal
– 1111 00002 = 24010
– 11112 = 1510
– 1002 = 410
Binary Conversion

■ Octal to Binary
– 258 = 010 1012
– 1458 = 001 100 1012
– 28 = 0102

■ Binary to Octal
– 1111 00002 = 3608
– 11112 = 178
– 1002 = 48
Binary Conversion

■ Hexadecimal to Binary
– 2516 = 0010 01012
– 14516 = 0001 0100 01012
– 216 = 00102

■ Binary to Hexadecimal
– 1111 00002 = F016
– 11112 = F16
– 1002 = 416
Binary Conversion

Binary Decimal Octal Hexadecimal

0000 0000 0 0 0
0000 0001 1 1 1
0000 0010 2 2 2
0000 0011 3 3 3
0000 0100 4 4 4
0000 0101 5 5 5
0000 0110 6 6 6
0000 0111 7 7 7
Binary Conversion

Binary Decimal Octal Hexadecimal

0000 1000 8 - 8
0000 1001 9 - 9
0000 1010 10 - A
0000 1011 11 - B
0000 1100 12 - C
0000 1101 13 - D
0000 1110 14 - E
0000 1111 15 - F
 Data Representation

• ASCII
• EBCDIC
• Unicode
 Data Representation - ASCII

• Stands for American Standard Code for Information

Interchange
• Computers can only understand numbers, so an ASCII
code is the numerical representation of a character such
as 'a' or '@' or an action of some sort.
• ASCII codes represent text in computers,
communications equipment, and other devices that work
with text
• Originally consisted of 7 bits for each character, later it
has been extended to 8 bits (127 characters)
 Data Representation - EBCDIC

• Stands for Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange

Code
• Is an 8 bit coding scheme
• It is a binary code for alphabetic and numeric characters
that IBM developed for its larger operating systems.
• All IBM mainframe computers, even the most recent
models, continue to support EBCDIC so that legacy
applications can be run without modification.
• IBM's PC and workstation operating systems do not use
IBM's proprietary EBCDIC. Instead, they use the industry
standard code for text, ASCII.
 Data Representation - UNICODE

• A subset of ASCII
• Uses 2 bytes (16 bits) for each character, instead of 1
byte (8 bits)
• Coding scheme capable for representing all world‘s
language
• Takes up twice as much memory space and hard disk
space
 Data Representation

How is a letter converted to binary form and back ?

Step 1.
The user presses Step 2.
the capital letter An electronic signal for the
D (shift+D key) capital letter D is sent to the
on the keyboard. system unit.

Step 4.
After processing, the binary code for the
capital letter D is converted to an image,
and displayed on the output device.
Step 3.
The signal for the capital letter D is converted
to its ASCII binary code (01000100) and is
stored in memory for processing.