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CHAPTER1- DATA REPRESENTATION - AREEBA NAEEM

The document provides notes on data representation for IGCSE 2025, covering key concepts such as binary and hexadecimal systems, overflow errors, logical shifts, and character encoding with ASCII and Unicode. It also discusses sound and image data conversion, data storage calculations, and the differences between lossy and lossless compression methods. The notes emphasize the importance of understanding these concepts for efficient data processing and representation in computer science.

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Sidra Jamil
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14 views3 pages

CHAPTER1- DATA REPRESENTATION - AREEBA NAEEM

The document provides notes on data representation for IGCSE 2025, covering key concepts such as binary and hexadecimal systems, overflow errors, logical shifts, and character encoding with ASCII and Unicode. It also discusses sound and image data conversion, data storage calculations, and the differences between lossy and lossless compression methods. The notes emphasize the importance of understanding these concepts for efficient data processing and representation in computer science.

Uploaded by

Sidra Jamil
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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CS – NOTES – IGCSE- 2025 Chapter 1 – Data Representation Areeba Naeem

Notes : Conversions are not included in these notes , so please learn them by yourself

Binary:

• Computers can only process data in binary form because data is processed in a
computer using logic gates that only have two states (1 and 0 ).
• Computers use binary to represent data because they are made of switches and gates
that can only be on or off.
Hexadecimal:

• Hexadecimal is easier to understand than binary as it is a shorter representation of the


binary.
• It is easier/quicker to understand/read/write.
• It takes up less screen space
• It is easier/quicker to debug.
• Programmers are less likely to make mistakes using hexadecimal.
• Ways hexadecimal is used in computer science :
→ HTML color codes
→ URL
→ IP address
→ MAC address
→ Error codes
→ Memory dump
→ ASCII/UNICODE.
Overflow:

• An overflow error will occur if the value is greater than 255 in an 8-bit register
• A computer or a device has a predefined limit that it can represent or store, for example
16-bit.
• An overflow error occurs when a value outside this limit should be returned.
• The result of the calculation is greater than 255 // The value generated is larger than
what can be stored in the register
• The result of the calculation would require more than 8 bits to be represented // A
register has a predetermined number of bits and there are too many bits for it
Logical Shifts:

• Each shift left is multiplying the number by two and each shift right is dividing the
number by two.

Areeba Naeem
CS – NOTES – IGCSE- 2025 Chapter 1 – Data Representation Areeba Naeem

ASCII and UNICODE:

• A character set is all the characters and symbols that can be represented by a computer
system. Each character and symbol is assigned a unique value.
• ASCII has limited and fewer characters and Unicode has more characters.
• ASCII covers a limited set of languages; Unicode includes more languages.
• ASCII requires 7/8 bits per character, Unicode requires up to 16/32 bits per character.
• ASCII has 128/256 characters
• Unicode has approximately 60 thousand/4 billion characters
• Unicode takes up more storage space as each character is encoded using more bits.
• ASCII uses one byte to represent a character, whereas Unicode will support up to four
bytes per character.
Sound:

• A sound wave is sampled for sound to be converted to binary, which is processed by a


computer
• This is how analogue sound is recorded and converted to digital : The analogue sound
is recorded using a microphone. The sound wave is sampled by measuring the
height/amplitude. Each amplitude has a unique binary value. The sample rate is set that
is the number of samples taken per second. The sample resolution is set that is the
number of bits used for each sample. Each sample taken is converted to binary.
• Sample rate is the number of samples taken in a second.
• Sample resolution is the number of bits per sample (aka bit depth)
• Bit depth is the number of bits per sample
• The accuracy of the recording and the file size increases as the sample rate and
resolution increase
Image:

• An image is a series of pixels that are converted to binary, which is processed by a


computer
• Resolution is the number of pixels in the image
• Color depth is the number of bits used to represent each color
• The file size and quality of the image increases as the resolution and color depth
increase
Data Storage:

Areeba Naeem
CS – NOTES – IGCSE- 2025 Chapter 1 – Data Representation Areeba Naeem

• 1KiB = 1024 bytes | 1 MiB = 1024 KiB | 1 TiB = 1024 MiB


| 1 PiB = 1024 TiB | 1 EiB = 1024 PiB

• Calculating file size =


image resolution(in pixels) x color depth (in bits)
• Calculating size of a mono sound file =
sample rate(in Hz) x sample resolution (in bits) x length of sample (in seconds)

Compression:

• Lossy files are smaller than lossless files


• Lossless compression :
→ A compression algorithm is used such as RLE (run length encoding).
→ Repeating words/characters/phrases are identified and indexed with number of
occurrences.
• Lossy Compression :
→ A compression algorithm is used.
→ It removes unnecessary data from the file.
→ It removes sounds that cannot be heard by the human ear.
→ It reduces sample rate or the resolution
→ It reduces sample resolution or color depth
→ Data is permanently removed//Original file cannot be re-instated.
→ Perceptual music shaping is used
→ Lossy file compression algorithms : MPEG-3

• File needs to be compressed due to various reasons such as:


→ Reduce the file size
→ Increase transmission speed
→ To save storage space / Reduce storage space required
→ To make it quicker to transmit
→ To make it small enough to attach to an email
→ To reduce the bandwidth needed to transmit
• Reducing file size also reduces the quality (there can also be images included in it)

Areeba Naeem

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