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Quantifying Bits and Bytes
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Even though the word “bit” is an abbreviation for “binary digit”, it can be further abbreviated, usually as a lowercase “b”. A byte is composed of eight bits and usually abbreviated as an uppercase “B”. Transmission speeds are typically expressed in bits, whereas storage space is typically expressed in bytes.
When working with computers, you’ll frequently encounter references such as “50 kilobits per second”. In common usage, “kilo”, abbreviated as “K”, means a thousand. In the decimal number system we use on a daily basis, the number 1,000 is 10 to the 3rd power, or 10³. In the world of computers where base 2 is the norm, a “kilo” is precisely 1,024, or 2¹º. A kilobit (Kb or Kbit) is 1,024 bits, a megabit is 1,048,576 or 2²º bits, a gigabit is 1,073,741,824 bits or 2³º bits.
Digital Electronics
Because most computers are electronic devices, bits take the form of electrical pulses that can travel over circuits, in much the same way that electricity flows over a wire when you turn on a light switch. All the circuits, chips, and mechanical components that form a computer are designed to work with bits. Most of these essential components are housed within the computer’s system unit. A computer’s system unit typically contains circuit boards, storage devices, and a power supply that converts current from an AC wall outlet into the DC current used by computer circuitry.
The terms “computer chip”, “microchip” and “chip” originated as technical jargon for “integrated circuit”. An integrated circuit (IC) is a super-thin slice of semiconducting material packed with microscopic circuit elements, such as wires, transistors, capacitors, logic gates, and resistors. Semiconducting materials are substances with properties between those of a conductor and an insulator. The assortment of chips inside a computer includes the microprocessor, memory modules, and support circuitry. The computer’s main board, called a system board, “motherboard”, or ”main board”, houses all essential chips and provides connecting circuitry between them.
Comprehension сheck. Mark the following statements as True or False.
1. Both analog and digital devices work with continuous data.
2. The binary system allows computers to represent any number or symbol.
3. The more bits are used for representing a character data – the more is the number of characters provided by a certain code.
4. To know the code used to represent data a computer has to read the file header.
5. The process of digitizing is used to transform digital data into analog ones.
6. The DC is transformed into the AC for the computer to be able to work.
7. An integrated circuit is often referred to as Unicode.
Vocabulary practice
1. Match up the words that are similar in meaning.
| 1. rotate 2. allow 3. employ 4. require 5. provide 6. interpret | a) permit b) understand c) spin d) ensure e) need f) apply |
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2. Fill in the blanks choosing from the variants given.
1. Main memory … only a small amount of storage area for the data and instructions required by the CPU.
a) allows b) transforms c) provides d) rotate
2. To fabricate a chip, the conductive properties of selective parts of the … can be enhanced.
a) electrical pulses b) semiconducting mater c) digital devices d) binary numbers
3. Some chips on the motherboard are plugged into special sockets and connectors that … chips to be removed for repairs.
a) allow b) assign c) avoid d) include
4. Even embedded computers … maintenance by people.
a) transform b) range c) employ d) require
5. The most powerful computer systems with the fastest processing speed … supercomputers.
a) rotate b) are referred to as c) avoid d) include
6. Every key stroke on a keyboard … a letter symbol into a digital code that the machine can understand.
a) converts b) requires c) allows d) provides
7. Most computers … the simplest type of digital technology – their circuits have only two possible states.
a) assign b) employ c) require d) range
3. Make two-word expressions combining words from two lists. Then fill in the gaps in the following sentences. Some words can be used more than once.
A: data B: data
diverse digit
integrated header
binary circuit
file representation
character
numeric
1. The binary number system represents … as a series of 1s and 0s.
2. An … contains microscopic elements such as wires, transistors, and capacitors, that are packed onto a very small square of semiconducting material.
3. The process of transforming data into form that computers can use for processing is referred to as ….
4. Today computers typically represent … digitally.
5. A computer treats the letters and symbols in a word as … which can be represented by a string of 0s and 1s.
6. All the material your computer works with is stored in files as long strings of ….
7. A … is stored along with the file and contains information about the code used to represent the file data.
4. Fill in the gaps in the text.
Most of today’s computers are electronic, digital devices that work with data coded as binary digits, also known as ___. To represent numeric data, a computer can use the ___ number system. To represent character data, a computer uses Extended ___, EBCDIC, or Unicode. These codes also provide digital representations for the numerals 0 through 9 that are distinguished from numbers by the fact that they are not typically used in mathematical operations. Computers also ___sounds, pictures, and videos into 1s and 0s.
A ___ is a single 1 or 0, whereas a ___ is a sequence of eight 1s and 0s. Transmission speeds are usually measured in ___, but storage space is usually measured in ___ or gigabytes.
Speaking. Discuss the following questions.
1. What is data representation?
2. How do computers represent data digitally?
3. How can a computer represent words and letters using bits?
4. How does a computer convert music and pictures into codes?
5. When a computer works with a series of 1s and 0s, how does it know which
code to use?
6. How can you tell the difference between bits and bytes?
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7. What do the prefixes kilo-, mega- and giga- mean?
8. How does a computer store and transport all those bits?
9. What’s a computer chip?
10. What provides connectivity between all the constituent parts of the computer?
Text B
Pre-reading. Match the English words with their Russian equivalents.
| 1. cache memory | a) внутренний генератор тактовых или синхронизирующих импульсов |
| 2. CMOS | b) конвейерный режим; конвейерная обработка |
| 3. benchmark | c) постоянно замонтированный; с фиксированным монтажом |
| 4. internal clock | d) сверхоперативная память |
| 5. pipelining | e) эталонный тест для проверки производительности компьютера |
| 6. hard-wired | f) комплементарный металлооксидный полупроводник (КМОП) |
Reading. Read the text and try to guess the meaning of the words in bold font. Check your variants in the dictionary.
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