Coding Systems in Computer

How Computers Store Numbers

Computer systems are constructed of digital electronics. That means
that their electronic circuits can exist in only one of two states: ON
or OFF. These patterns of "on" and "off" stored inside the computer
are used to encode numbers using the binary number system.
The representation of numbers in computer can be done in
Binary ( Numbers in base 2)

Octal (Numbers in base 8 )

Decimal (Numbers in base 10 )

Hexadecimal. (Numbers in base 16 )

Decimal System
Decimal notation is the writing of numbers in the base-ten numeral
system, which uses various symbols (called digits) for no more than
ten distinct values (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9) to represent any
numbers, no matter how large.
The values of each position correspond to powers of the base of the
number system. So for our decimal number system, which uses base
10, the place values correspond to powers of 10:
Hundreds

Tens

Units

Result

1 x 100 + 6 x 10 + 3 = 163

4 x 10 + 0 = 40

8 x 100 + 0 x 10 + 7 = 807

8
...
...

Binary Code

1000

100

10

10^3 10^2 10^1 10^0

The binary number system is a method of storing ordinary numbers

such as 42 or 365 as patterns of 1's and 0's. Because of their digital
nature, a computer's electronics can easily manipulate numbers
stored in binary by treating 1 as "on" and 0 as "off." Computers have
circuits that can add, subtract, multiply, divide, and do many other
things to numbers stored in binary.

The Octal Number System (Base-8)

The octal number system uses EIGHT values to represent numbers.
The values are,
0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 & 7
with zero having the least value and seven having the greatest
value. Columns are used in the same way as in the decimal system,
in that the left most column is used to represent the greatest value.
Octal was used extensively in early mainframe computer systems,
but has become less popular in favour of binary and hexadecimal
today.

The Hexadecimal Number System (Base-16)

The hexadecimal number system uses SIXTEEN values to represent
numbers. The values are,
0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E and F
with 0 having the least value and F having the greatest value.
Hexadecimal is often used to represent values (numbers and memory
addresses) in computer systems.

ASCII Alphanumeric Code

ASCII stands for American Standard Code for Information
Interchange. It is a code for representing English characters as
numbers, with each letter assigned a number from 0 to 127. The
standard ASCII character set uses just 7 bits for each character.

The BCD Number System

Binary Coded Decimal (BCD) is a system in which each integer of a
decimal number is represented by a 4-bit binary number.

EBCDIC
EBCDIC (Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code ) is a
binary code for alphabetic and numeric characters that IBM
developed for its larger operating systems. It is an 8 bit code and can
provide 256 different characters. It is used on IBM mainframes and
on other large computers.

MEMORY UNITS
Bit
A binary digit is called a bit. Usually expressed as 0 and 1 the two
numbers of the binary numbering system. A bit is the smallest unit of
information a computer can use.
Reading a series of bits is very difficult and to make this process
easier they are often displayed in groups of 4 bits 0100 1111 0101
1000
A group of 4 bits is called a NIBBLE. It contains four digits. E.g.
1001, 0001, e.t.c
Byte
A group of 8 bits are in a byte. With 8 bits ( binary digits ), there
exists 256 possible denary combinations.
A byte can represent any alphabetical letter, single digit, or a single
character/symbol, such as #.
Large numbers of bytes can be expressed by kilobyte, megabyte,
gigabyte and terabyte. E.g.
The word COMPUTER has 8 byte or characters. It contains 64 Bits
and 16 nibbles.

Kilobyte
The value of a kilobyte is 1024 Byte. Worked out as 210 bytes.
Normally Kilo refers to 1000 but in computing kilobyte is 1024.
Megabyte
Likewise, 1024 Kilobyte (Kb) is referred to as a "Megabyte". Normally
a Mega refers to a million. In computing 1 Mega byte is 1,048,576
bytes. Worked out as 220 bytes or 1024 X 1024.
Gigabyte
The value of a gigabyte is 1024 Mb. That is, 230 bytes
In summary,
8 Bits
1024 Bytes
1024 Kb
1024 Mb
1024 GB

=
=
=
=
=

1
1
1
1
1

Byte
Kilobyte (Kb)
Megabyte (Mb)
Gigabyte (GB)
Terabyte (Tb)