Data Communication

It is the process of communicating

information in binary form between two
points
Sometimes called “Computer
Communication”, because most of the
information interchanged today is between
computers.
Early forms of Communications
Puffs of smoke
Reflections of sunlight from a hand-held
mirror
Signal flags
Lanterns
 Early uses of Electricity
1753 – early proposal to a scottish
magazine, based from the 26 parallel wires
from town to town, one wire for each letter
1833 – Carl Friedrich Gauss used a code
based on a 5 by 5 matrix of 25 letters (I & J
combined) to send messages by deflecting
a needle from one to five times, right-left
 Telegraph
First notable development in data
communications in 19th century based on
electric power.
Invented by Samuel F. B. Moorse (Finley
Breese)
Samuel F.B. Moorse
 Morse Code
1844 – best-know demonstration of
telegraph using the morse code.
Morse transmitted over a wire from
Washington to Baltimore the message
“What hath God wrought!”
1866 – the telegraph connected the
nations of the world with the laying of
the trans-Atlantic cable between the
United States and France
 Two-state Communication
System
It is the simplest, the easiest to build, and
the most reliable. The states can be On
and Off (telegraph), Plus & Minus(current
flowing), Light & Dark(flashlight), 1 & 0
(computer)
 Mark and Space
Worldwide standards for data
communications
Marking Condition – idle condition on the
transmission channel.
 Bits and Bytes
Binary digit – commonly referred to as a
bit, represented by 0 & 1.
Byte – several bits combined in uniform
group.
Communication Codes
 Codes
Agreed-upon-in-advance meanings
between signaling elements and
characters.
 Characters
The letters, numerals, space, punctuation
marks, and other signs and symbols on a
keyboard
 Signaling Elements
Something that is sent over a transmission
channel and used to represent a character
Ex. Dot and dashes or O’s and 1’s
 Codes
Baudot Code
Modern Codes
– EBCDIC
– ASCII
 Baudot Code
Developed in 1870 by a Frenchman
named Emile Baudot.
It used same number of signaling
elements to represent each character
It was better suited to machine encoding
and decoding.
Based from 5-bit code could generate only
32 possible combinations.
 Modern Codes
CCITT International Alphabet No. 2
(International Telegraph and Telephone
Consultative Committee ) – a single 5-bit
code still used for telex transmission
EBCDIC
ASCII
 EBCDIC
(Extended Binary Coded
Decimal Interchange Code)
Developed by IBM and primarily used
for synchronous communication
systems attached to a large mainframe
computers
8-bit code, allowing 256 characters to
be represented.
 ASCII
(American Standard Code For
Information Interchange)

It was defined by American National

Standards Institute (ANSI) in the US by the
International Standards Organization (ISO)
7-bit code, formally known as ANSI
Standard X3.4-1977 that can represent 128
characters.
Extended ASCII - IBM PC in 1981
 Escape Character
(ESC)
Designates that the codes that follow have
special meaning.
It has the effect of making all character
codes available for control of a device.
Escape Sequence – code sequences
made up of noncontrol characters that are
to be interpreted as control codes.
 Teleprinters
Next major step after the telegraph in data
communications.
Backbone of nonvoice business
communications for over half a century
Teletypwriter (TTY) – a teleprinter with a
keyboard for input, standard terminal for
small-and medium-size computers
 Two Nationwide Public
Teleprinter
TWX - Teletypewriter Exchange Service
TELEX - International telegraphic
message-transfer service consisting of a
network of teleprinters.
Data Communications in
Computing
 The 1950s
Typical computer system used punched
cards for input, printers for output, reels for
magnetic tape for “permanent” mass storage.
There was little or no data communications in
these system because the input devices,
output devices and computer were all located
close together and were directly connected
by short cables.
Information was processed on a “one job at a
time” or “batch” basis.
 The 1960s
In the 1960s, the use of outlying, on-lie
terminals required communications links to
coonect them to the main computer
 The 1970s
The introduction of the minicomputer and
the very portable microcomputer required
that these units have increased
communications with their mainframe
computer
 The 1980s
Advances in technology increased the
capabilities, reduced the size and power
requirements of computers, and provided
a new communications link – the satellite
 The 1990s
Installation of appropriate adapter card in
each personal computer, cabling and
software, local area netwoks (LANs)
 Devices used in Networking
Gateways – enabled personal computers
on selected LANs to access corporate
mainframe computer.
Brigdes – enable data to be transmitted
between two LANs supporting the same
transmission protocol, allowing electronic
messages, data files, and programs to be
sent between users on different network.
Routers – examines data destination
addresses and route data over different
circuits based upon those addresses
enabled a lesser number of lines to be
used for interconnecting many LANs.
 PC PC

LAN
PC

Bridge

Bridge
PC
PC
To different
LAN Router warehouse

PC Gateway Mainframe
Computer
 Changes in the Industries
In modern communication systems, we
can interconnect equipment of many
different sizes and capabilities from a
variety of suppliers.
General Description of a Data
Communications System
 Three Components of Data
Communication System
The Transmitter (also called the “source”)
Transmission Path(usually called the
channel, but sometimes line)
The Receiver (occasionally called the
“sink”)
 Universal Seven-Part Data
Circuit
The data terminal equipment (DTE) at point A.
The interface between the DTE and the data
circuit-terminating equipment (or the data
communications equipment) (DCE) at point A.
The DCE at point A.
The transmission channel between point A
and point B
The DCE at point B
The DCE-DTE interface at point B
The DTE at point B.