How Computers Store Information

and seeding the idea of problem solving

Sukrit Gupta

January 11, 2024

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Outline

1 Bits

2 Different representations of numbers

3 Universal Character Encoding Standards

4 Python (and why learn it!)

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Acknowledgement and disclaimer
What you will see today is how I feel about these things today.
All opinions (if any) are mine.
I am human and make mistakes (sometimes more than the average
human).

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 Section 1

Bits

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Human and digital communication

How do humans communicate (when there is no digital media

involved)?
Verbal and written forms?
How do we communicate with computers and vice versa?
What language do they understand?
Bits = Binary Digits

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Why bits?

Computers have evolved over several decades. Why did they not
just have decimal digits?
What is the primary input to computers?
Electricity! Electricity can be used to represent information. How?
Computers store electricity to represent information. Presence =
1; absence = 0.

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BTW, why are most modern computers binary?

In electronics, a voltage level or current flow is a way to represent

a value.
Let’s suppose that we want to try out the decimal system instead
of the binary system. How would we represent this in electronics?
For a range of 0-5V voltage, we could divide it into 10 steps (0V,
0.5V, 1.0V, and so on). So what’s the problem?
R R
Energy = t P ower = t Current × V oltage. So more voltage
means more energy expended. But we can always make the range
smaller (0-1V instead of 0-5V)?
Electronic signals are not always steady and can be influenced by
the surroundings internal circuits. Thereby, 0.5 could become 0.75
and it would be hard to understand whether it is 1 or 2.

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Counting with bits

How many numbers can you count with 1 bit?

How about 2 bits?
Now how about 3 bits?
Now how about 10,000 bits? 210000
Now how about 1 million bits?

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 Section 2

Different representations of numbers

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Let us have a closer look

In the decimal system, the number 125 = 100*1 + 10*2 + 1*5.

100 , 101 , 102 , ... are the bases. What are the bases in the binary
system?
In the binary system, the bases are 20 , 21 , 22 , ...
How do we think about the number 6?
6 = 22 *1 + 21 *1 + 20 *0.

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Exercise: Convert decimal 77 to binary number

Decimal number 77 = 26 *1 + 25 *0 + 24 *0 + 23 *1 + 22 *1 + 21 *0 +
20 *1
= 1001101

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Binary, octal, decimal, hexadecimal number systems

Table: Conversion
Base 2 Base 10 Base 8 Base 16
(binary) (decimal) (octal) (hexadecimal)
0000 0 0 0
0001 1 1 1
0010 2 2 2
0011 3 3 3
0100 4 4 4
0101 5 5 5
0110 6 6 6
0111 7 7 7
1000 8 10 8
1001 9 11 9
1010 10 12 A
1011 11 13 B
1100 12 14 C
1101 13 15 D
1110 14 16 E
1111 15 17 F

In modern computing and digital electronics, the most commonly used

bases are decimal (base 10), binary (base 2), octal (base 8), and
hexadecimal (base 16).

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Data conversion in different bases

I gave a few examples of how to convert from decimal to binary. How

to do this for:
Decimal to Octal
Decimal to Hexadecimal

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Exercise: Convert decimal 77 to octal and
hexadecimal forms
Binary form:
Decimal number 77 = 26 *1 + 25 *0 + 24 *0 + 23 *1 + 22 *1 + 21 *0 +
20 *1
= 1001101

Octal form:
Decimal number 77 = 82 *1 + 81 *1 + 80 *5.
= 115

Hexadecimal form:
Decimal number 77 = 161 *4 + 160 *D.
= 4D

Okay, we have seen how computers represent numbers. How about

alphabets?
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 Section 3

Universal Character Encoding Standards

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ASCII: American Standard Code for Information
Interchange

We can give any arbitrary code

to digits/alphabets and use
the code to represent them.
Can anyone tell me how many
bits do you need to represent
an ASCII character?
Actually, ASCII started with 7
bits but ended up having 8
bits (1 parity bit) later. 8 bits
= 1 byte.
What does 89 79 33 mean?
Figure: The (incomplete) ASCII table1
1
https://www.cs.cmu.edu/∼pattis/15-1XX/common/handouts/ascii.html
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ASCII is still insufficient. Why?
Doesn’t support other languages.
Lot of languages use accents that are absent in ASCII.
Emoticons are also missing!

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Unicode comes into picture
So Unicode was introduced in the late 1980s.
It uses higher number of bits to represent
characters/symbols/emoticons.
As of Jan, 2023 (Unicode 14.0), there are 149,186 characters that
are covered in Unicode.

Figure: Represented by Unicode: 127846

Okay, enough about text. What about images?

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Images

1
Figure:

Can anyone guess what videos are?

1
Image courtesy: The Office (US)
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Sound
Sound Waves in the Air − > Transducer − > Electrical Form − >
Analog to Digital Converters − > Digital Signal

2
Figure:

2
Image courtesy: Sound in Digital Form
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 Section 4

Python (and why learn it!)

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Brief History of Python
We use Python as a vehicle to present concepts related to
computational problem solving and thinking.
I am not a fan of Python, just want you start your programming
journey with something where I can convey computational ideas
instead of focusing on the syntax all the time.
Python is a living language. Since its introduction by Guido von
Rossum in 1990, it has undergone many changes.
With the arrival of Python 2.0 in 2000, a large number of people
began developing libraries that interfaced seamlessly with Python,
and continuing support and development of the Python ecosystem
became a community-based activity.
Python 3.0 was released at the end of 2008. Cleaned up many of
the inconsistencies in the design of the various releases of Python 2
(often referred to as Python 2.x). Not backward compatible.

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Upsides of learning Python

It’s old: Python has been around since the nineties. That doesn’t
only mean that it has had plenty of time to grow. It has also
acquired a large and supportive community.
It’s beginner-friendly: The syntax of Python is very
human-readable and many other features make it easy for
beginners.
It’s versatile: Since Python has been around for so long,
developers have made a package for every purpose. These days,
you can find a package for almost everything.

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Downsides of Python

Speed: Python is slow (Like, really slow). On average, you’ll need

about 2–10 times longer to complete a task with Python than with
any other language.
Mobile Development: As we’re witnessing the shift from
desktop to smartphone, it’s clear that we need robust languages to
build mobile software.
Runtime Errors: A Python script isn’t compiled first and then
executed. Instead, it compiles every time you execute it, so any
coding error manifests itself at runtime. This leads to poor
performance, time consumption, and the need for a lot of tests.

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 Thank you!

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