Bridging Assessment

Unit 2

HN Diploma in Computing and Systems Development

Input

Temporary Storage

Process

Permanent Storage

Output

Assessment Front Cover

Unit Assessment Issued Final Handin Student Name Folder/Filename Unit 02 Bridging Assessment 07/09/2011 16/09/2011 Your name B012011

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A Bit; is a contraction of binary digit, this is the smallest item of information a pc can handle. A bit can hold the value of 0 or 1 (Computer Active 2011). A bit is the basic unit used for the information in computing. A bit represents the amount of information stored by a digital device. More information can be stored by using consecutive bits and combining them together to form larger units. Computers are sometimes classified by the number of bits they can process at one time or by the number of bits they use to represent addresses (Webopedia 2011). But these two values sometimes cause confusion because they are not always the same, for example: A computer being classified as a 32-bit machine, might indicate that the data registers are 32 bits wide or it may also imply that the computer uses 32 bits to identify each address in the memory. If a computer has a larger register it speeds up the computer, by using bits into more addresses it enables the machine to support larger programs. The number of bits can also be used to represent each dot used in graphics. A 1-bit image is monochrome; an 8-bit image supports 256 colours or greyscales; and a 24- or 32-bit graphic supports true colour (Webopedia 2011). It is important not to confuse bits with bytes. Both are used to measure amounts of data, but it takes eight bits to make one byte (Tech terms 2011). The term Nibble originates from the fact that the term byte is a pun on the English word bite. A nibble is a small bite, or half a bite. The nybble spelling parallels the spelling of byte (Wikipedia 2011).

A nibble is referred to as a four-bit aggregation. This means that it contains four bits; which is half a byte. A nibble can be conveniently represented by one hexadecimal digit. Like crumb, nibble carries on the "edible data" metaphor established with bit and byte (wide-eyedwebs 2011). A nibble can be referred to as many things; sometimes it is referred to as a quadbit when dealing with communications. Rather than encoding signals one bit at a time, it can be encoded in quadbits. A nibble can be used to describe the quantity of memory used to store a digit of a number stored in packed decimal format. A Byte is an abbreviation for binary term, a unit of storage capable of holding a single character (Webopedia 2011). A byte in most cases; is the unit which is used to represent various characters such as letters or numbers. A byte can also hold a string of bits that need to be used in some larger unit for application purposes (searchstorage 2011). An example could be a string of bits which are used to form a computer programs coding. A Byte is represented by the collection of eight bits; this represents a single character in the memory of the computer. Bits are often used to measure the speed of data transfer whereas bytes; are used often to measure the sizes of various files, but as the amount of bytes increase the name given to the

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file sizes differ. For example a file size of 1024 bytes is called a kilobyte whereas a file size of 1048576 bytes is known as a megabyte. The terms bit and byte are common in computer networking. Both terms refer to digital data transmitted over a network connection (compnetworking.about 2011). In computing, word is a term for the natural unit of data used by a particular processor design (Wikipedia 2011). The term Word, is described as a unit of data that can be addressed to move from either the storage of the computer or even the computers processor. In computer systems which have an Intel processing structure, the word, contains 16 bits, which is also known as 2 bytes, whereas in the IBMs system the word, is a total of 32 bits or, also known as 4 bytes. Some computer processor architectures support a half word, which is half the bit length of a word, and a double word (doubleword), which is two contiguous words. Intel's processor architecture also supports a quadword, two contiguous doublewords, and a double quadword, two contiguous quadwords (searchcio-midmarket.techtarget 2011). A word is capable of containing many types of computer instructions such as; handling the storage of addresses and manipulating application data. In some cases a word is not enough to carry out an instruction, therefore double words or even larger units are used to contain the instruction. In general, the longer the architected word length, the more the computer processor can do in a single operation (searchcio-midmarket.techtarget 2011). Hertz is the standard unit used to measure frequency and given that frequency is measured in cycles per second; then one hertz is equal to one cycle per second. The Hertz is named after Heinrich Hertz, who first detected electromagnetic waves (Webopedia 2011). Hertz is often used to measure various wave frequencies such as light waves and sound waves, but it is also used in computing to measure the speed of computer processors. It is used to measure them because each processor is assigned a specific clock speed. But since there are processors that can perform more than millions of instructions at the same time, the clock speeds for processors are either measured in megahertz or gigahertz. Various computer buses, such as the front-side bus connecting the CPU and Northbridge, also operate at different frequencies in the megahertz range (for modern products) (Wikipedia 2011). In computing hertz can also be used to measure the refresh rate of a CRT television and monitor. Digital data transmission can occur in two basic modes: serial or parallel. Data within a computer system is transmitted via parallel mode on buses with the width of the parallel bus matched to the word size of the computer system. Data between computer systems is usually transmitted in bit serial mode (Stallings 2000). Parallel transmission can take place in either within a computer system or else it can take place in an external device which is located at a close distance. A special chip in the computer; known as the Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter, is used as the interface to create the parallel transmission of the computer bus and the serial transmission of the serial port. In parallel transmission, 8 bits are sent at the same time onto numerous channels inside the same cable, which is followed by the synchronisation of a clock. Parallel devices have a wider data bus than serial devices and can
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therefore transfer data in words of one or more bytes at a time (Stallings 2000). Due to this the bit rate transmission in parallel is faster than the bit rate transmission in serial. But although it is faster there are still negatives because with parallel wires; the longer they are then the sensitivity between various channels increase due to the effect in the synchronisation. A continuous clocking signal sent over a separate wire inside of the parallel cable provides the timing for parallel transmission; hence why parallel transmission is considered synchronous. An example of a parallel transmission would be the connections made between a computer and a printer which has a parallel printer port. In serial transmission, bits are sent sequentially on the same channel (wire) which reduces costs for wire but also slows the speed of transmission. Also, for serial transmission, some overhead time is needed since bits must be assembled and sent as a unit and then disassembled at the receiver (Stallings 2000). Parallel transmission is asynchronous, but serial transmission can be either asynchronous or synchronous. When serial transmission is synchronous, lots of bits are formed into frames, which are then sent continuously either with or without data. When serial transmission is being used synchronously; the group of bits are sent as individual units, which have start/stop flags and no data link synchronisation. This is so that amid frames there can be an arbitrary size gap. However there is a physical bit level synchronisation maintained by the start/stop bits, but only once they have been detected. An example of a serial transmission would be the connections made between a computer and a modem that uses an RS-232 protocol. In computing, Hexadecimal notation is a system for representing numbers using the 16 alphanumeric characters 0-9, A, B, C, D, E, and F, (bookrags 2011). Hexadecimal is a number system which uses the base-16. It is a different practice to the system that we use in everyday usage. In everyday practice, we use the base-10 system. In base-10, we count numbers using multiples of ten before we add on another digit, for example; 18,19,20,21 This example states that we have to reach a multiple of ten (in this case 20) before continuing to add on more digits. In the hexadecimal number system (base-16) you can have each digit represented by sixteen different values (0-9, A, B, C, D, E and F). Therefore, the number 12 (in the common base-10 format) would be represented as "C" in hexadecimal notation. The number 24 would be 18 (16+8). 100 is 64 in hexadecimal (16x6 + 4) and 1000 is 3E8 (256x3 + 16x14 + 8) (Tech term 2011). Although computers tend to process in the base-2 system (binary), sometimes it is better if the numbers are visually displayed in a hexadecimal format. This is due to; hexadecimal format being capable of displaying up to four binary digits. This means that since there are 8 bits in one byte, only two hexadecimal digits are needed to represent one byte as one hexadecimal digit can contain 4 bits. To conclude, we have looked at various descriptions of different terminologies which coincide with the computer system. The definitions given to these various computer terms show how they part take within the system. We can see that, the bit has a big role within the computer system and that most of the terms that have been defined such as word, byte and nibble; all are formed by multiple bits. But each one has a limited amount of bits to create it, for example: the byte has to have 8 bits for it to be a byte whereas the word has to have 16 bits, but as the number of bytes increase the names start to change for example; 1024 bytes is known as a megabyte. From the description of hertz, we can see that hertz is a measurement of frequency. This can also be defined as the measurement of the speed of various items within the computer system such as; the clock speed of the processor or the transfer speed of data. Finally we can see that parallel and serial transmission both have similar aspects, but have differences as well. Parallel transmission is synchronous, but serial transmission can be both asynchronous or synchronous. It is cheaper to use serial transmission, but parallel transmission is a lot faster. Both parallel and serial transmission; are ways of transmitting data to and from the computer system.

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Reference List
Computeractive simple clear advice for home PC users. 2011 [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.computeractive.co.uk/ca/jargon-buster [Accessed 15 September 2011] Webopedia: Online Computer Dictionary for Computer and Internet Terms and Definitions. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.webopedia.com. [Accessed 15 September 2011]. Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia. [ONLINE] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/. [Accessed 15 September 2011] The Information Station 2011. [ONLINE] Available at: http://wide-eyedwebs.com/instation/Computer_Terms [Accessed 15 September 2011] Computer Glossary, Computer Terms - Technology Definitions and - The Tech Dictionary and IT Encyclopaedia. [ONLINE] Available at: http://whatis.techtarget.com. [Accessed 15 September 2011] Hexadecimal Notation Summary | BookRags.com. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.bookrags.com/research/hexadecimal-notation-wcs. [Accessed 15 September 2011] Serial and Parallel Transmission Summary | BookRags.com. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.bookrags.com/research/serial-and-parallel-transmission-csci-02/. [Accessed 15 September 2011]

Bibliography
William Stallings, 1999. Data & Computer Communications (6th Edition). 6th Edition. Prentice Hall

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