Information Technology II (Notes) 1

Uganda Christian University
Faculty of Science and

Technology
Information Technology II
Lecture 0
BSIT 1, BES 1
January Semester 2011
Mr. Ronald Ssejjuuko
0781 457 185
rssejjuuko@technology.ucu.ac.ug
BSIT 1: Information Technology II 1

Introduction
 The growth and development of Information

Technologies (IT) has led to the ignition and
increase in their economic and social impact;
a cause that has led many to crave and
advance in areas of technology.
 This course will enable students be part of
this hi-tech epoch by building on the
principles learnt in Information 1
Technology 1. 2
Introduction cont’d
 So the principles and skills learnt from
information technology 1 will highly be
appreciated to underscore the need for
this course.
 This will enable the student to
understand the need of information
technology in keeping and manipulating
information or data

Course description
 This course introduces the engineering behind a modern
information infrastructure which is the foundation for the
revolution in Systems that we are currently experiencing
including economic and social systems.
 The course prepares students to take advantage of new
information technologies that will as well influence their
prospective careers and enhance their deeper study of
computers and their use.
 Students should and will be in position to make changes
in their particular professions based on the continuing
emergence of new information technologies and
associated capabilities.
Course description
 It allows those who provide, interpret, manage and
otherwise use information to make fundamental
changes in what they do and how they do it. These
changes have created a need for a broad
understanding of IT and the ways in which it can be
applied.
 ►Understanding today’s IT is the basis for learning
tomorrow’s IT and those who have the benefit of a
broad understanding of the field will be better users
of it than those to whom it remains vague and a bit of
a mystery.

Learning objectives
 The course seeks to provide knowledge regarding

such concepts as the nature of information and all
that it may entail, storage media and the fundamental
principles governing information technology.
 Exposure to hardware and software tools(advanced
spreadsheets) for information capture, analysis,
conversion, display and management will provide
students with the knowledge needed to bring the
appropriate information related technologies to bear in
their disciplines.

Grading
 3 tests will be administered of which a student has to
do at least 2. (Best 2 tests will be considered)
 Course Work (1) will be administered.
 Exercises will be done
 In order to receive a passing grade for this course, a
student should attain greater than 35% (17.5) of the
entire course work and must receive a passing
grade (greater than 35% [17.5]) in the final exam.

Grading Cont’d
 The basis for the final grade awarded is;
 Class attendance, participation & engagement 5%
 Tests 30%
 Assignments15%
 Final Exam 50%
• A student should receive a cumulative grade of greater than

50% marks to receive the normal progress attribute;
implying that a student has to attain a grade greater than 50
as a result of the summation of the grades from both course
work and the final exam.
• Students are expected to attend at least 85% of the total
lectures.

Scheduled Dates for Tests &
Course Work
 Assignment 1 Week 2
 Test 1  Week 4
 Assignment 2 Presentation Week 5
 Test 2  Week 6
 Test 3 Week 8
 Final Exam Week 13
 Dates may change depending on students progress

or due to any other unpredicted events.
 Exercises will be appended to students assessment

Classes Scheduled for:
Day Time Room Course
Friday 4:00-6:00pm K10 BES 1
Wednesday 5:00-7:00pm TP3
Tuesday 8:30-10:30am TP2 BSIT 1

Thursday 8:30-10:30am OV2
Lecturer’s Office Hours:
Wednesday 11:00am - 4:00pm

Thursday 11:00am - 4:00pm
Referential Material for this Course
1. David Cyganski, John A. Orr with Richard F. Vaz (2001).
Information Technology Inside and Outside. Upper Saddle River,
New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
2. Peter Norton (1999). Introduction to computers. Third Edition:
Glencoe/McGraw-Hill
3. Peter Norton. Computing Fundamentals. Fifth Edition:
Glencoe/McGraw-Hill
4. Introduction to information technology by Turban.Rainer.Potter
5. E.S Waburoko Computers. An introduction to Information
Technology.
6. Beekman, George. Computer Confluence: Exploring Tomorrow's
Technology, Concise Edition. Edition 5.5. Upper Saddle River, NJ:
Prentice Hall, 2003.
Type: Textbook. ISBN: 978-0536-199690

Faith and Teaching
 Everyone should appreciate that God is the
beginning of all wisdoms. Nothing comes to us
without God’s knowledge.
 “Study to shew thyself approved unto God….”
(2Tim 2:15)
 And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own
business, and to work with your own hands, as
we commanded you; (1Thes 4:11)

Faith and Teaching
 2Thes3:10-12 For even when we were with
you, we would give you this command: If
anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.
For we hear that some among you walk in
idleness, not busy at work, but busy bodies.
Now such persons we command and
encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their
work quietly and to earn their own living.
Faith and Teaching
 God gives you as much as you ask. Therefore ask
for more insight in whatever you learn so that you
can be blessed with much knowledge.
 Misuse of knowledge is abuse of God’s power
-which not ethical in the Christian perspective.
 Christians should view information technology as a
tool to do God’s work, not for ungodly gains.


Faith and Teaching
 Ethics:
 While more than just a list of “do’s” and “don’ts,” the
Bible does give us detailed instructions on how to
live as a Christian should. The Bible is all we need to
know about how to live that Christian life. However,
the Bible does not explicitly cover every single
situation we will face in our lives. How then is it
sufficient? That is where Christian Ethics comes in.


Faith and Teaching
 Science defines ethics as “a set of moral principles, the
study of morality.” Therefore, Christian Ethics would be the
principles, derived from the Christian faith, by which we act.
God’s Word cover every situation we face throughout our
lives, its principles give us the standards by which we must
carry ourselves in those situations where there are no
explicit instructions.
 For example, the Bible does not say anything explicitly about
the spreading pornographic contents, yet based on the
principles we learn through Scripture, we can know that it is
wrong.

Faith and Teaching
 For one thing, the Bible tells us that the body is a temple of
the Holy Spirit and that we should honor God with it (1
Corinthians 6:19-20). Knowing what these materials do to our
bodies—the harm they cause to minds—we know that by
viewing them we would be destroying the temple of the Holy
Spirit. That is certainly not honoring to God.
 The Bible also tells us that we are to follow the authorities
that God Himself has put into place (Romans 13:1). Given the
illegal nature of pornography, by spreading them we are not
submitting to the authorities, but rather, rebelling against
them.

 By using the principles we find in Scripture, Christians can
determine their course for any given situation. In some cases
it will be simple, like the rules for Christian living we find in
Colossians, chapter 3. In other cases, however, we need to
do a little digging. The absolute best way to do that is to pray
over God’s Word.
 We need to rely on God. We must pray over His Word and
open ourselves to His Spirit. The Spirit will teach us and
guide us through the Bible to find the principle we need to
stand on so we may walk and live as a Christian should.

•Everyone should appreciate that God is the beginning of all wisdoms. Nothing comes to us without God’s knowledge.
•God gives you as much as you ask. Therefore ask for more insight in whatever you learn so that you can be blessed with much knowledge.
•Misuse of knowledge is abuse of God’s power -which not ethical in the Christian perspective.
•Christians should view database system as a tool to do God’s work, not for unGodly gains.
Remember:
Work hard; success is a ladder

you can not climb with your
hands in your pockets!
 You are not running the race alone

 otherwise you may crash

Remember
 And lastly; obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run
into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how
to climb it, go through it or walk around it. You don’t
drown by falling in water. You drown by staying there. So
please be encouraged to press on no matter what, for you
know your goal. You may get weary, tired and knocked
out, but get back up again and determinedly move on for
what is ahead of you is surely a fortune. Let your friends
into your circle for they will or may provide the strength
needed for you to carry on.
 All the best.

Course outline
 This course will be administered in four main modules:

 Module 1- Introduction
 Information Revolution( A review on Information
Technology 1
 Representing information in Bits
 The need and basis for data protocols
 Large Capacity Storage

Course outline
 Module 2- Fundamentals of Spreadsheets(advanced
• Importing and Exporting Data, Import from other applications
• Create, using, editing Templates
• What is a workspace? Using , Saving a workspace
• Link workbooks
• Formatting Numbers, conditional formatting
• Auditing a Worksheet, Printing Workbooks
• Use the Report Manager
• Working with Named Ranges
• Using Macros

Course outline cont’d
 Module 3- Graphics and visual information
 From the real world to Images and Video
 Computer Graphics and Virtual Reality
 Module 4- Data compression
 Compressing Information
 Image Compression
 Digital Video

Lecture 1
 Module I- Introduction
• Information Revolution( A review on Information
Technology 1
• Representing information in Bits
• The need and basis for data protocols
• Large Capacity Storage

Module I: What is the Information in
the Information Revolution?
 Objectives:
 Definition and explanation of what information
is and the important distinction among the
terms information, message and signal
 Components that make up an information
System and their arrangement
 Distinctions between analog and digital
information and the rationale behind the quick
replacement of analog systems by digital
systems

 In this module we will discuss what information is and the
systems that surround us that store, manipulate and
transmit this information. We will discuss some of the
different forms that information can take - forms that are
of much interest to artists, musicians, historians
architects, salespersons, managers and public officials as
they are to the scientists and engineers usually
associated with Information Technology.
 Information- Knowledge communicated or received

concerning some fact or circumstance; news
 The world is full of facts, some discovered, some
remaining to be discovered. When used in some way,
these facts become information.

Information, Messages and
Signals
 Signal-This is actual entity (electrical, optical, mechanical etc)
that is transmitted from sender to receiver e.g. Human vocal
cords send out audible signals such as speech. Animals like
birds send out mating signals which are specific sound patterns
they create. Similarly human vocal cords send out audible
signals such as speech
 Message- The knowledge that is transmitted e.g. in the case of

birds might be “Its mating season, I’m available”. Whereas the
signal is a specific sequence of sound waves, the message is
the meaning conveyed by that sequence.
 Another example are the kingdom drums that were used to
communicate

Information
 A message received and understood knowledge
acquired through study or experience or
instruction formal accusation of a crime data: a
collection of facts from which conclusions may
be drawn; "statistical data" (communication
theory) a numerical measure of the uncertainty
of an outcome; "the signal contained thousands
of bits of information"

Process of Information generation
 Conversion
 Manipulation Data
 Storage
 Capture
 Transmission Information
 Utilisation

Evolution
 Oral
 Paintings
 Symbols
 Writings
 Printing
 Non Electronic Computation
 Telegraphy
 Telephone
 Radio
 TV BSIT 1: Information Technology II 30
Forms of Data
 Audio
 Graphics
 Text
 Audio-Visual
 Multimedia

Information Systems
 Examples:
 The phonograph
 The telephone
 The camera and other digital recording devices
 Some Systems like the telephone System are

transitioning from analog electronics to
computer like electronics that are digital. (The
meaning of analog and digital will be described
in the subsequent sections)

Components of any
communications system
 Generic Communication System
Input Transmitting Out put

Transmitter Receiver
Transducer Channel Transducer
 Input Transducer: Device that converts a physical signal

from the source to an electrical, electromagnetic or
mechanical signal more suitable for communication
 Transmitter: Device that sends that transduced signal

 Transmission Channel: Physical medium on
which the signal is carried
 Receiver: Device that recovers the transmitted

signal from the channel
 Output Transducer: Device that converts the

received signal back into a useful physical
quantity

 This type of representation is known as a block
diagram that provides a model for many
different communication systems and is a very
useful tool for representing complex systems.
Each block represents a subsystem which
performs some function: the specific function
determines the relationship between the signal
entering the block and the signal leaving the
block. (Signals are represented by arrows)

Representation and Quantifying
Information.
 The fidelity and Information Content of Signals
 Fidelity- A measure of the difference between the original and

reproduced forms of the information. E.g., does the received
voice sound the same as it would if the person were standing in
the room? Probably not. Is the person recognizable? Quite
possibly. Answering these questions may be quite different
from determining the information content of the message.
 Starts with encoding ( Codes)
Characteristics of Codes
o Uniqueness
o Standardization
o Compatibility

Representation and Quantifying
Information.
NB: Faulting in any of the above leads to
Fidelity
The coding system determines the
Scheme
 For example the message “You have passed”.
Most of the information content is contained in
the distinction between “passed” and “not
passed”. As long as you have received that
correctly, you do not care whether the
message was high fidelity or not.
Analog and Digital Information
 Analog - Comes from the word analogy referring to the
relation that one thing has to another. It is used to refer to
the natural world where time is continuous and most
parameters like light and sound intensity, temperature,
position etc can vary smoothly and continuously over
some range, taking on an infinite number of possible
values.
 On the other hand, there are some parameters that

change only in discrete steps e.g. days of the month,
games won or lost and the squares on a check board.

 The term digital is used to refer to information
representation for which both time and the value
being measured move in discrete steps, that is when
there are a finite number of possible values.
 Most modern communications and storage systems

are built around the digital computer. Most of the
information we deal with is analog, however it is
possible to convert back and forth between analog
and digital.

The Move toward digital
Information Technology
 Classical information transmission and storage systems
developed over a period of decades or even longer. In
contrast, some new Information Systems have sprung up
and achieved widespread usage almost overnight. E.g.
the phonograph invented in 1877 by Thomas Edison
remained unchanged in principle until the CD was
introduced in 1983. The phonographs which had been
the sound recording norm for 100yrs essentially
disappeared. How did this happen? Such fundamental
changes happen as a result of two conditions:

1. The new System either enables some totally new
capacity or is much better than the one it replaces
2. The cost of the new system is reasonably low
compared to people’s willingness to pay.
 The CD meets both criteria.

 Quality of the reproduction (as well as convenience of
use) is better
 Costs are low (manufacturing costs are very cheap)
 Digital electronics integrate small mechanical
components making them cheap and that is why analog
systems that are large mechanical devices are tending
to digital.

 All other types of Information Systems in use (telephone,
camera) have converted to and are in the process of
converting to digital versions. (Telephone-VOIP,
Cameras-Digital Cameras)
 Digital information systems almost without exception have
proven to be more reliable and less expensive than the
analog systems they have replaced. This combination of
better performance and lower cost devices further
facilitated by the seemingly unending development of
faster smaller and cheaper digital electronics has
revolutionized the way in which we communicate and
manage information.

Module I questions:
 Read about the following communication systems and
identify the five components shown in the block diagram
(Input transducer, transmitter, the transmission channel,
the receiver and the output transducer)
 A doorbell
 Telephone System
 Cable TV
 Broadcast Radio
 For each of the above systems, identify the signal,

message and information that may be carried in the
message.

Module I questions:
 List as many information systems as you
can that are found in your vicinity and
identify as best as you can whether
these systems are analog, digital or both.
Briefly explain the analog and or digital
aspects

Lecture 2
 Fundamentals of Binary Representation

Fundamentals of Binary
Representation
 Objectives:
 The concept of a code for information
 Binary numbering system and the means by
which all information can be represented by
codes containing only zeroes and ones
 Representation of numeric and text data with
binary digits
 Properties of signals that vary with time
 Means by which errors in stored or transmitted
information may be detected and corrected

 The only reason that we can use the internet as a conduit
for text, pictures, telephone conversations today and
some day our regular TV viewing is that we can convert
all these forms of information into the same form: Binary
bits.
 By the end of this module, you should have an
understanding of how and why we use binary digits
(binary digits)
its to represent information regardless of its
original form. You should also have a grasp on the idea of
protocols and become familiar with the details of a few
simple binary protocols.
 You will also become familiar with some of the terms and
quantities used to refer to binary information.

Information and its
Representation
 Can be traced back from cave drawings and stone
tablets, through scrolls and Gutenberg's revolutionary
printing press into our current age of electronic
Information Technology.
 Before storing, manipulating or transmitting information

we must first capture it and convert it into some
representation that will facilitate our tasks.
 Useful information and interesting data however appears
to us in many different forms.
• Numeric
• Voice messages
• Pieces of Music
• Photographs
• Video

 To carry out the above mentioned tasks
(storing, manipulating or transmitting ) we
require a process of encoding the information.
The result of encoding will be a pattern or code
representing the original information. We also
require a process of decoding to convert the
information back into its original form.
 The encoding and decoding processes should
be unique, each code must represent one
thing so that information can be represented
unambiguously and recreated correctly.

 Whatever form we convert our information into
must be well suited to the development of
inexpensive and reliable equipment for
handling it.
 The technique for representing information
must have the following requirements:
• Unique- Uniquely represent information to recreate it
in its original form.
• Standardized so that it can be used for many different
applications
• Compatible with inexpensive and reliable technology
for handling information

The search for and appropriate
code - Why binary Code?
 In our search for an appropriate code for
representing information, we will start by
restricting ourselves to codes with a finite
number of elements called an alphabet.
 Such codes have a limited number of different

symbols that can be used to represent
information. This as we will see, leads to
reliable means for storage and transmission.
 But how many different symbols should the
code have? We can gain some insight by
looking at some familiar codes.
A look at written alphabets
 The alphabet used for the English language is
commonly thought to contain about 96
elements (26 lower case characters, 26 upper
case characters, 10 numbers and 32 special
characters such as space, the dollar sign-$,
the ampersand-& etc)
 We use this code daily to represent information
for storage in books, and other documents;
and transmission in form of letters and e-mail.

 A more complex code is that used by the Chinese
that has a total of as many as 40,000 characters.
One complex character can convey an entire concept
to the skilled reader. Because there are many
different symbols, each one conveys much
information, therefore fewer characters are needed to
communicate a set of ideas than if we were to use
the letters of written English.

 This form of Chinese is thought of as one of
the most difficult languages. There are so
many characters, some quite similar to others,
the task of distinguishing one from another is
very challenging. On the other hand it is a
relatively simple task to distinguish the few
symbols of the English language from each
other, making them less likely to cause
misinterpretation.

The Need for a Robust Scheme
 We must consider the question of which is more
important:
• That each symbol of code conveys a lot of information or
that
• We should be able to readily distinguish the symbols from
each other
 Remember an information code must be unique,
compatible and standardized.
 Reliable manipulation of information depends upon
tolerance to errors. Because we must encode, store,
manipulate, transmit and decode information using real
equipment operating in the physical world, we will be
subject to the laws of nature. Our equipment will not
operate perfectly and will be subject to unpredictable
disturbances.
 The code therefore must represent information in a way
that is robust or tolerant to errors or error resistant and in
an unambiguous fashion. For this to take root, it would
appear that we want as few different symbols as possible.
 Remember the fewer symbols the code has, the easier it
is to distinguish these symbols from each other and the
more robust the code will be.
 A code with just one symbol however would convey no
useful information; only one character would be available
and there would be no unique way to encode and decode
information using this code.

 A code with just two symbols called binary
code might at first seem to be almost as
useless. Certainly it should be a simple task to
distinguish between only 2 characters; but it
would seem as if each symbol would not be
able to convey much information.
 What good is a code that can only convey one
of two symbols at any time?? The answer to
this question will more or less extended over
the rest of what we shall cover.

Bits as Building Blocks of
Information
 Binary code uses the first two integers 0 and 1.
Another way of representing these is by “T” &
“F” short for “True” and “False” respectively.
 Because these are binary digits,
its (that can only
take on one of two values), they are known as
bits.
 What happens when we begin to string
together collections of these bits into longer
structures or words?

 A two bit word can be arranged in four patterns.
 00, 01,10,11
 We could therefore (by prior agreement between the
transmitter and receiver) use a pattern of two bits to
represent any one of the four directions.
 00-North
 01-South
 10-East
 11-West
 We could transmit the bit pattern “10” to represent the
direction “East” if we wanted to send someone into that
direction.

 Note that the recipient of this message would need
to know how the message was encoded so that it
could be decoded from “10” to “East”.
 Adding a third bit increases the representational

power to eight patterns
 000 100
 001 101
 010 110
 011 111

 Every time we add a bit, we double the number of
possible combinations and so we double the number of
different things these multi-bit codes or code words could
be used to represent. This can be seen from the fact that
each existing codeword can be changed into two new
code words by adding another bit. Either a 0 or a 1 to the
end of it.
 In how many patterns can 4 bits be assembled?
• Answer:
• 2*2*2*2=16
 In how many patterns can 8 bits be assembled?

 In general, given n bits in a code word; there are 2n different
code words which can represent one of 2n different messages.
 Convert these decimal integers to binary:
• 16
• 56
• 100
 From binary convert these back to decimal
 Convert the following binary numbers to decimal.

• 1011
• 1001001
• 100

BCD Representation
 An alternative representation of integers is simply to
represent the individual numbers that comprise them. For
example the number 218 can be represented as three
numerals.
 2 representing 200
 218 can then be converted to binary form by converting
each of the numerals, one at a time into binary code.
 This scheme is referred to as the binary coded decimal

form (BCD).

BCD Representation
 In computing and electronic systems, binary-
coded decimal (BCD) (sometimes called
natural binary-coded decimal, NBCD) is an
encoding for decimal numbers in which each
digit is represented by its own binary
sequence. Its main virtue is that it allows easy
conversion to decimal digits for printing or
display, and allows faster decimal calculations.

BCD Representation
 Its drawbacks are a small increase in the
complexity of circuits needed to implement
mathematical operations. Uncompressed BCD is
also a relatively inefficient encoding—it occupies
more space than a purely binary representation.
 In BCD, a digit is usually represented by four bits
which, in general, represent the
values/digits/characters 0–9. Other bit
combinations are sometimes used for a sign or
other indications.
BCD codes commonly used to represent
numerals:
Numeral BCD Representation ►We can represent any
 0 0000 integer by a string of
 1 0001 binary digits. E.g..
 2 0010
 3 0011 ► We can represent 328
as:
 4 0100
 5 0101 0011 0010 1000
 6 0110
 7 0111 ► Space is inserted for
 8 1000 convenience
 9 1001

Lecture 3
 Representing Text with Bits

Representing Text with Bits
 In the previous slides, we saw how binary codes can be used to
represent the numerals 0-9. A similar approach called ASCII
(Pronounced “ask-key” ) is commonly employed to represent
text.
 ASCII is an acronym for American Standard Code for Information
Interchange.
 It is used to encode text and in particular is useful for

representing information which is entered via a computer
keyboard. Therefore ASCII must be able to represent:
• Numerals
• Letters in both upper and lower case
• Special printing symbols like @, $, *, &, %, (, ) etc
• And commands that are commonly used by computers to represent
carriage returns, line feeds and other text-formatting directives.
Representing Text with Bits
 The commands being talked about here are referred to a
control characters, that can be generated from a
keyboard by invoking functions like “backspace”, or
“enter” or they can be created by special-purpose keys,
such as “control”, “escape”, or numbered “function” keys.
 The need for a code to represent all of these

components of text motivated the development of ASCII
and other similar codes.
 When this code was developed, a decision was made
that 128 different characters would suffice for
representation of text (27=128), meaning that each text
character or command is represented by a 7-bit word.

 E.g.; the following piece of text consists of 16 letters,
three spaces and an exclamation mark.
 You are good students!
 1011001 1101111 1110101 0100000 1100001 1110010

1100101 0100000 1100111 1101111 1101111 1100100
0100000 1110011 1110100 1110101 1100100 1100101
1101110 1110100 1110011 0100001
 How would this text be represented in ASCII code? (Refer

to the list appended to this set of notes)
 You & I,

Convenient Forms for Binary
Codes
For binary words - strings of ones and zeroes - often used to
represent numbers, text characters and other quantities; to be
conveniently and efficiently stored and manipulated by computers,
they a typically used in sizes of 8, 16, 32 and 64 bits long.
Bits, bytes and Beyond.

Because the above sizes are all multiples of 8, a binary word of 8
bits,
bits known as a byte is a convenient measure of a binary word
size in a computer. The amount of memory space-the number of
binary digits that a computer can store is measured in bytes, each
of which in turn represents 8 bits of storage. Because the
architecture of computers makes it more practical for memory and
other forms of information storage to be in sizes that are powers of
2, it is common to encounter memory sizes such as “64KB” and
“8MB”.

Octal and Hexadecimal
Representation
 Octal (Base eight system)
 Uses 8 numerals: 0-7
 The first 20 numbers in this system are:
 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,20,21,22,23
 From 23, What are the next 10 numbers in this system?
 Each number can only take on one of 8 values and

because 8 is a power of two (23), we can use and octal
numeral to represent a grouping of bits. Specifically we
can use an octal numeral to represent 3 bits:
 Because there are 8 numerals
and also 8 Patterns that can
be formed by three bits, we
Octal Numeral Bit Pattern can use this table to
•0 000 represent groups of three bits
by a single octal numeral.
•1 001 Thus if the following 12-bit
•2 010 pattern is stored in a
computers memory:
•3 011
•4 100  0101100111012 (base two)-binary
•5 101
•6 110
 We can represent these bits
in octal form as
•7 111
26358 (base eight) - Octal

Octal and Hexadecimal
Representation
 Hexadecimal (Base sixteen system )
 “Hex”-Uses 16 numerals
 But how? There are only 10 Arabic numerals?
 The letters A through F are used to fill out a set of 16
different numerals i.e.:
 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D,E,F
 The first 20 numbers are therefore:

 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D,E,F,10,11,12,13

 Because each numeral can take one of 16
values and because 16 is also a power of 2
(24), we can use a hex numeral to represent a
grouping of four bits.
 The table in the next slide shows the possible

4-bit patterns, along with their decimal, octal
and hexadecimal representations.

 Decimal Octal Hex Numeral Bit Pattern
• 0 0 0 0000
• 1 1 1 0001
• 2 2 2 0010
• 3 3 3 0011
• 4 4 4 0100  There are 16 hex
• 5 5 5 0101 numerals and
• 6 6 6 0110 also 16 patterns
• 7 7 7 0111 that can be
• 8 10 8 1000 formed from four
• 9 11 9 1001 bits.
• 10 12 A 1010
• 11 13 B 1011
• 12 14 C 1100
• 13 15 D 1101
• 14 16 E 1110
• 15 17 F 1111

Introduction to Error Detection
and Correction
 Information once in binary form can be stored, transmitted
and retrieved with a great degree of convenience and
reliability. However in any physical situation it is inevitable
that problems might occur. In particular when binary
information is sent across some physical channel- wires,
coaxial cable, optical fiber or the airwaves; there always
exists the possibility that some bits will be received in
error due to interference and other unpredictable events.
 Binary representation of information makes it possible to

perform coding of information to ensure reliable
performance.

Error Detection Methods
 The only way to do error detection and correction
is to send extra data with each message
 Two common error detection methods:
• Parity checking
• Simple parity
• Longitudinal parity or Longitudinal Redundancy Check (LRC)
• Polynomial Checking
• Cyclic Redundancy Checksum (CRC)-Read more on this
 Coding involves changing the original information (pattern of
bits) into a new encoded pattern that is usually longer but in
some way more desirable.
 Decoding involves recreating the original pattern.
 One important function of coding is to enable the detection (and

often correction) of errors that can occur in data transmission
across a noisy channel.
 This ability to detect and correct errors is one of the primary
advantages of using digital transmission instead of analog.
 A fundamental aspect of error control coding is redundancy.
We may not want our information to have redundant
information as this will consequently result in longer messages
and a waste of transmission or storage resources.

However extra bits that are added to the transmitted
data that repeat some of the previous information can be
of importance in a way that this repetition helps the
receiver detect errors
If an error is detected, the receiver can either request

that the data be retransmitted or can possibly even
correct the data itself.
Error detection is the ability to detect the presence of
errors caused by noise or other impairments during
transmission from the transmitter to the receiver

8 bits including parity
7 bits of data
(number of 1s)
even odd
0000000 (0) 00000000 10000000
1010001 (3) 11010001 01010001
1101001 (4) 01101001 11101001
1111111 (7) 11111111 01111111

Even Parity Example
Transmitted Transmitted Transmitted Received Received Do We
Character Information Parity Information Parity Detect an
error?
H 1001000 0 1000000 0 Yes
e 1100101 0 1100101 0 No
l 1101100 0 1101100 0 No
p 1110000 1 1110000 1 No

Simple Parity
 The number of ones in each data block is counted and a
zero or one is appended to that block to make the total
number of ones even (for even parity)
parity or odd (for odd
parity).
 By adding this additional bit (called a parity bit), we are

ensuring that every block or coded word leaving the
transmitter is known to have an even number of ones if
even parity coding is used, or an odd number if odd
parity coding us used.
 If the number of ones does not match the parity (when

the system is using even parity and a codeword with an
odd number of ones is received), then we know that an
error has occurred.
Simple Parity
 Analyze the table in slide 78. Because of a noisy
channel one character was impaired and hence that
one bit is misinterpreted by the receiver. This
message will therefore be decoded as “@elp”. (@
representing a received bit instead of H
-misinterpretation). In this case, if the information
includes a parity bit, the receiver can detect that the
message contains an error and request a
transmission.
 What limitations can you deduce from this scheme?

Simple Parity
 What if the transmitted information was 1001000 and that
received is 1111000?
 The parity received will be correct but the bit sequence is
wrong!
 If you carefully note, the scheme does not detect which
actual bit has an error
 So can we do better than this?

 Certainly; in fact, just about every system that uses digital
information employs a coding technique for detecting and
correcting errors that is more complex and performs
much better than the simple parity example we have
seen.

Simple Parity
 As a good example, the information contained on a CD is
carefully encoded to allow the CD player to detect and
correct errors that can occur during playback due to
smudged or scratched discs or misalignment of the
playback mechanism.
 These high performance methods for error coding are

based on more sophisticated approaches involving
mathematical theories developed in support of
information theory. These techniques all rely on the
fundamental idea of adding structured redundancy to
information before it is stored of transmitted.

Simple Parity
 This redundancy greatly improves the reliability of digital
information systems by allowing the detection and
correction of errors. The more error-resistant we want our
systems to be, the more redundancy we should add,
while keeping in mind that this redundancy reduces the
rate at which we are transmitting or storing actual
information.
 The tradeoff between error detection and correction

capability and the desire to store or transmit as few bits
as possible is one of the key areas of current research in
data communication and must be carefully considered by
system designers in light of the requirements of the
systems they are designing.

Simple Parity
 Occasionally known as vertical redundancy check
 Add an additional bit to a string of bits:
• Even parity
• The 0 or 1 added to the string produces an even number of 1s
(including the parity bit)
• Odd parity
• The 0 or 1 added … an odd number of 1s (including the parity bit)
1 Even parity
0 1 0 1 0 1 0
0 Odd parity
Example
Letter 7-bit ASCII Parity bit

D 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 1
A 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 1
T 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 0
A 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 1
Even Parity or Odd Parity?

Parity Examples - Using
Even Parity
Even Parity of 1’s LRC/VRC
Data VRC
1 0 0 1 1 1 0 0
Data Parity 0 0 1 1 1 0 0 1
1 1 1 0 1 1 1 0
1 0 0 1 1 1 0 0 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 0
0 0 1 1 1 0 0 1
0 0 1 1 1 0 0 1
0 0 1 0 1 0 1 1
1 1 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 0 1
1 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 LRC
90
Reliability/Efficiency
 What happens if the character 10010101 is sent and
the first two 0s accidentally become two 1s?
 Thus, the following character is received: 11110101.
 Will there be a parity error?
 Problem: Simple parity only detects odd numbers of
bits in error
• Isolated single-bit errors occur 50-60% of the time
• Error bursts occur 10-20% of the time
 Efficiency: 1:7 (parity:data) w/ mediocre error-
detection
Longitudinal Parity
 Sometimes called LRC or Horizontal Parity

 Add Block Check Character (BCC) after a block
of characters:
• Perform simple parity checking on each row of bits
• Then create a row of parity bits, or a BCC: each parity bit in this
last row is a parity check for all the bits in the column
0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1
1 0 0 1 1 1 0 0
BCC 1 1 0 0 1 0 0 1
Example
Letter 7-bit ASCII Parity bit
D 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 1
A 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 1
T 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 0
A 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 1
BCC 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 1

Reliability/Efficiency
Longitudinal parity is better at catching errors
• But requires too many check bits added to a block of data
 But still…

Efficiency: (n+8) : 7n (check bits: data) w/ a little bit better than mediocre
error-detection
 We need a better error detection method
Polynomial Checking
 Adds a character to the end of the data based on a
mathematical algorithm:
• Checksum
• E.g., Sum the data values and divide the sum by 255. The remainder is
the checksum
D 68
A 65 282
= 1 remainder 27
T 84 255
A 65
Checksum 0 0 1 1 0 1 1 1
27
Cyclical Redundancy Check (CRC)
 CRC error detection method treats packet of data to be transmitted as
a large polynomial
 Transmitter
• Using polynomial arithmetic, divides polynomial by a given
generating polynomial
 Quotient is discarded
• Remainder is “attached” to the end of data
 Data (with the remainder) is transmitted to the receiver
 Receiver divides the (data – remainder) by the same generating
polynomial
 If a remainder of zero results  no error during transmission
 If a remainder not equal to zero results  error during transmission
Example: CRC
7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0
0 0 1 1 0 1 1 1
Message polynomial
x5+x4+x2+x1+x0  x5+x4+x2+x+1
Generating polynomial
ATM CRC x8 + x2 + x + 1
CRC-16 x16 + x15 + x2 + 1
Error Control
 Once an error is detected, the receiver can:
1. Do nothing
 Some newer systems such as frame relay perform this type
of error control
2. Return an error message to the transmitter
 Stop-and-wait ARQ (Automatic Repeat reQuest)
 Go-back-N ARQ
 Selective-reject ARQ
3. Fix the error with no further help from the transmitter
Stop-and-wait ARQ
 A transmitter sends
a frame then stops
and waits for an
acknowledgment
 If a positive
acknowledgment
(ACK) is received,
the next frame is
sent
 If a negative
Sliding Window Protocol
 Go-back-N ARQ and Selective-reject are more efficient
protocols
• They assume that multiple frames are in transmission at one time
(sliding window)
 A sliding window protocol allows transmitter to send up to
the window size frames before receiving any
acknowledgments
 When a receiver does acknowledge receipt, the returned
pack contains the number of the frame expected next
Example of Sliding Window
RR: Receive Ready


Go back-N ARQ
If a frame arrives in error, the
receiver can ask transmitter to
go back to the Nth frame, after
Nth frame is retransmitted,
sender resends all subsequent
frames
Selective-reject ARQ
 Most efficient error
control protocol
 If a frame is received in
error, the receiver asks
transmitter to resend
ONLY the frame that
was in error
 Subsequent frames
following the Nth frame
are not retransmitted
Correct the Error
 For a receiver to correct the error with no further help
from the transmitter requires a large amount of
redundant information accompanying original data
 This redundant information allows the receiver to
determine the error and make corrections
 This type of error control is often called
Forward Error Correction

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Uganda Christian University

Faculty of Science and

BSIT 1: Information Technology II 1

 The growth and development of Information

BSIT 1: Information Technology II 3

BSIT 1: Information Technology II 5

 The course seeks to provide knowledge regarding

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• A student should receive a cumulative grade of greater than

BSIT 1: Information Technology II 8

 Dates may change depending on students progress

BSIT 1: Information Technology II 9

Tuesday 8:30-10:30am TP2 BSIT 1

Lecturer’s Office Hours:

Wednesday 11:00am - 4:00pm

BSIT 1: Information Technology II 11

BSIT 1: Information Technology II 12

BSIT 1: Information Technology II 14

BSIT 1: Information Technology II 15

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Work hard; success is a ladder

 You are not running the race alone

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 All the best.

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 This course will be administered in four main modules:

BSIT 1: Information Technology II 21

BSIT 1: Information Technology II 22

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BSIT 1: Information Technology II 24

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 Information- Knowledge communicated or received

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 Message- The knowledge that is transmitted e.g. in the case of

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BSIT 1: Information Technology II 29

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 Some Systems like the telephone System are

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Input Transmitting Out put

 Input Transducer: Device that converts a physical signal

 Transmitter: Device that sends that transduced signal

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 Receiver: Device that recovers the transmitted

 Output Transducer: Device that converts the

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 Fidelity- A measure of the difference between the original and

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 On the other hand, there are some parameters that

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 Most modern communications and storage systems

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 The CD meets both criteria.

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 For each of the above systems, identify the signal,

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