1.

ASCII code
● ASCII code (American Standard Code for Information Interchange was set up in 1963 for use in
communication and computer systems.
● It uses 7-bit codes (0 to 127 in denary or 00 to 7F in hexadecimal.
● Can only represent English characters.

Advantages Disadvantages

Takes less space. Cannot represent non-English characters.

Stores all alphanumeric characters. Inefficient character encoding.

2. EXTENDED ASCII
● EXTENDED ASCII uses 8-bit codes (0 to 255 in denary)
● Can represent non-English characters and some graphical characters.

3. ASCII code VS. Unicode

ASCII code Unicode

Uses 7-bit codes Uses 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit codes

Uses a fixed-length encoding scheme Uses a variable-length encoding scheme

Can only represent English characters Supports a wide range of characters and symbols.
Including different languages and emojis

4. Advantages and Disadvantages of Unicode

Advantages Disadvantages

Supports a wide range of characters and symbols, Takes more space; larger file size.
including different languages and emojis.

Uses 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit codes. Slow processing when working with text-based data.
5. Representing Sound
● Sound is an analog signal that is converted into digital form to be processed by a computer.

● To convert sound into digital form, a process called sampling is used. Sampling is a process that
involves taking measurements of the original sound wave at regular intervals and converting them
into binary data.

● The quality of the digital sound depends on two factors:

❖ Sampling rate, which is the number of samples taken per second. A higher sampling rate
results in a more accurate representation of the original sound wave, but also increases the
file size.
❖ Sampling resolution, which is the number of bits per sample. A higher sampling resolution
results in a more accurate representation of the original sound wave, but also increases the
file size.

● MIDI:
➔ Musical Instrument Digital Interface (file)
➔ Stores a set of instructions for how the song should be played
➔ Data in the file has been recorded using musical instruments
➔ Specifies which note to be played
➔ Specifies when the note should be played or when to stop
➔ Specifies the duration of the note
➔ Specifies the volume of the notes
➔ Specifies the type of instrument
➔ Each individual note can be edited

● MP3:
➔ MP3 is a format for digital audio
➔ MP3 file has the actual recording of the sound
➔ Recorded using a microphone
➔ MP3 is a lossy compression format

6. Representing Image
● A Bitmap image is made up of a series of pixels (small dots of color arranged in a grid. Each pixel is
represented by a binary code which is processed by a computer.

● The quality of the image depends on two factors:

❖ Image resolution, which is the number of pixels in the image. A higher image resolution
means there are more pixels in the image and is, therefore, sharper and more detailed but,
also requires more storage space.
❖ Color depth, which is the number of bits used to represent each color. A higher color depth
means that more colors can be represented, resulting in a more realistic image, but also
requires more storage space.

● Increasing the image resolution or color depth increases the file size because more pixels and colors
require more binary data to represent them.
7. Types of Data Compression
● Lossless Compression:
★ It is a compression algorithm that reduces the file size without permanently removing any
data from the file.
★ Repeated patterns are identified and indexed.
★ Techniques like RLE (Run-length encoding) and Huffman encoding are used.
★ RLE replaces sequences of repeated patterns with a code that represents the character and
the number of times it is repeated.
★ Huffman encoding replaces the most frequently used characters with a shorter code and
replaces the less frequently used characters with a longer code.

● Lossy Compression:
★ It is a compression algorithm that reduces the file size by permanently removing some data
from the file.
★ It is often used for images and audio files where minor details or data can be removed
without significantly impacting the quality.
★ Techniques like downsampling, reducing sampling rate and sampling resolution, and
reducing image resolution and color depth.