Computer Awareness: Number System & Logic Gate

Number System
Each key (representing character, special symbol, function keys, etc.) of the keyboard is internally mapped to an
ASCII code following an encoding scheme. This encoded value is further converted to its equivalent binary
representation so that the computer can understand it. Modern day computers use four types of Number
representation – Binary, Decimal, Octal & Hexadecimal.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/IkcpAFNOnN4Jba0g5TcNt7luQxIBi512Hrmp1YNMv79ApyE_LhH6ElClot4RfC
5lyeS5GYOhdEKwyMR9TcszVmN-ucod34XreCcq5T7E62Xi-7pP1-avTOCsgVtw4LxxlwedVCw

Every number system has a set of unique characters or literals. The count of these literals is called the radix or
base of the number system.

Binary Number System – The IC (Integrated Circuits) in a computer are made up of a large number of transistors
which are activated by the electronic signals (low/high) they receive. The ON/high and OFF/low state of a
transistor is represented using the two digits 1 and 0, respectively from the binary number system. This system
is also referred to as base-2 system as it has two digits only. Some examples of binary numbers are 1001011,
1011.101, 111111.01. A binary number can be mapped to an equivalent decimal number that can be easily
understood by the human.

Decimal Number System – It is known as the base-10 system since 10 digits (0 to 9) are used. A number is
presented by its two values — Name/Symbol value (any digit from 0 to 9) and positional value (in terms of base
value). Eg., 128.13

Octal Number System – Octal number system was devised for compact representation of the binary numbers.
Octal number system is called the base-8 system as it has a total eight digits (0-7), and positional value is
expressed in powers of 8.

Hexadecimal Number System – These numbers are also used for compact representation of binary numbers. It
consists of 16 unique symbols (0 – 9, A–F), and is called base- 16 system.

Comparison of Decimal, Binary, Octal and Hexadecimal System:

Decimal

(base 10)

Hexadecimal

(base 16)

Octal
(base 8)

Binary

(base 2)

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

.
.

31

32

10 (1+0)

11

.
.

1F

20 (2+0)

000

001

002

003

004

005

006

007

010

011

012

013

014

015

016

017

020

021

.
.

037

040

00000000

00000001

00000010

00000011

00000100

00000101

00000110

00000111

00001000

00001001

00001010

00001011

00001100

00001101

00001110

00001111

00010000

00010001

.
.

00011111

00100000

Encoding Scheme:

The mechanism of converting data into an equivalent cipher using specific code is called encoding. Thus each
alpha-numeric character entered through a keyboard is encoded into binary equivalent through a specific
Encoding Scheme so that it can be understood & processed by a CPU. Some of the well-known encoding
schemes are described below.

American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII)

The encoding scheme ASCII was developed for standardizing the character representation in the early days of
computers. Due to its ease of representation, ASCII is still the most commonly used coding scheme. Initially
ASCII used 7 bits to represent characters. Recall that there are only 2 binary digits (0 or 1). Therefore, the total
number of different characters on the English keyboard that can be encoded by 7-bit ASCII code is 2^7 = 128
(from 0 to 127). But ASCII is able to encode a character set of the English language only.

Indian Script Code for Information Interchange (ISCII)

In order to facilitate the use of Indian languages on computers, a common standard for coding Indian scripts
called ISCII was developed in India during the mid-1980s. It is an 8-bit code representation for Indian languages
which means it can represent 2^8=256 characters. It retains all 128 ASCII codes and uses the rest of the codes
(128) for additional Indian language character sets.

Advantages:

Majority of languages that are spoken in India are represented.

We need a special keyboard which contains ISCII character keys.

There were many encoding schemes, for character sets of different languages. But they were not able to
communicate with each other, as each of them represented characters in their own ways. Hence, text created
using one encoding scheme was not recognised by another machine using a different encoding scheme.
Therefore, a standard called UNICODE has been developed to incorporate all the characters of every written
language of the world. Commonly used UNICODE encodings are UTF-8, UTF-16 and UTF-32. It is a superset of
ASCII.

Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code (EBCDIC)

Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code (EBCDIC) is an eight-bit character encoding descended from
the code used with punched cards. There were numerous difficulties writing software that would work in both
ASCII and EBCDIC, eventually leading to its failure.

ITU – International Telecommunication Union

ITU was established in 1865 and headquartered at Geneva, Switzerland. The ITU promotes the shared global use
of the radio spectrum, facilitates international cooperation in assigning satellite orbits, assists in developing and
coordinating worldwide technical standards, and works to improve telecommunication infrastructure in the
developing world.

ISO – International Organisation for Standardization

The International Organization for Standardization's process for creating a new standard starts when industry
associations or consumer groups make a request. ISO then recruits subject matter experts and industry
stakeholders who form a technical committee. The committee goes through two rounds of creating a draft
standard and conducts a formal vote on the second draft, which is called the Final Draft International Standard
(FDIS), then ISO publishes it as an official international standard.

IEEE – Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

The IEEE is a professional association that develops, defines, and reviews electronics and computer science
standards. It is a non-profit organization that is dedicated to advancing the theory and application of electrical
and electronics engineering and computer science. Through its members, the IEEE is a leading authority on
areas ranging from aerospace, computers, and telecommunications to biomedicine, electric power, and
consumer electronics.

ANSI – American National Standards Institution

The ANSI is a non-profit organisation that provides accreditation for standards developed by other standards
organizations, companies, consumer groups, government agencies, and other bodies.

Logic Gates

A logic gate is an idealized model of computation or physical electronic device implementing a Boolean
function, a logical operation performed on one or more binary inputs that produces a single binary output. Logic
gates are primarily implemented using diodes or transistors acting as electronic switches.

Logic circuits include such devices as multiplexers, registers, arithmetic logic units (ALUs), and computer
memory, all the way up through complete microprocessors, which may contain more than 100 million gates.

i. Logic gates are the basic building blocks of any digital system, here it receives one or more inputs and
produces a single binary output (either 0 or 1) based on certain logic.

ii. Based on the function performed, logic gates are classified as AND, OR, NOT, EXOR, EXNOR, NAND & NOR
gates.

Gate

Representation

Function

AND

http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Projects/CAL/digital-logic/gatesfunc/graphics/AND.gif

Multiplication

OR

http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Projects/CAL/digital-logic/gatesfunc/graphics/OR.gif

Addition

NOT

(Inverter)

http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Projects/CAL/digital-logic/gatesfunc/graphics/NOT1.gif

Inversion

NAND
http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Projects/CAL/digital-logic/gatesfunc/graphics/NAND.gif

Multiplication & Inversion

NOR

http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Projects/CAL/digital-logic/gatesfunc/graphics/NOR.gif

Addition & Inversion

X-OR

(Exclusive OR)

http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Projects/CAL/digital-logic/gatesfunc/graphics/EOR.gif

Odd Word or Odd One Detector

X-NOR

(Exclusive NOR)

http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Projects/CAL/digital-logic/gatesfunc/graphics/ENOR.gif

Equivalence Gate

Note – The NAND and NOR gates are called Universal Gates since with any one of them, the basic functions -
AND, OR and NOT can be generated.

Logic gates representation using the Truth table

http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Projects/CAL/digital-logic/gatesfunc/graphics/nottable.gif
http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Projects/CAL/digital-logic/gatesfunc/graphics/summarytable.gif