Where is Electronically Stored Information? It’s Everywhere! - Electronically Stored Information - page 86

shorthand. for. each. of. their. nibbles?. You. guessed. it—they.
simply.translate.each.nibble.into.its.hexadecimal.equivalent,.
and. voila! .they.have.a.nice.shorthand..For.instance,.say.they.
want.to.code.the.byte.1011.0001..In.hexadecimal.that.would.
be:.B1.(you.can.look.that.up.in.Figure 3.2)—B.in.hex.equals.
1011.in.binary,.and.1.in.hex.equals.0001.(we.add.the.extra.
padding.zeros.so.it.will.be.a.nice.four-character.nibble).
At.this.point,.you.as.an.astute.and.thoughtful.reader.may.
be.saying.to.yourself,.“OK,.that's.all.ine.and.good,.but.how.
does.1011.0001.get.translated.into.words.or.symbols.that.I.
can.read.on.a.screen,.or.that.those.programmers.can.use.to.
make.applications.run?”
I'm. glad. you.asked,.because. that's.an. equally. interesting.
part.of.the.puzzle.that.it.is.important.to.understand.
In. order. for. computers. to. communicate. with. each. other.
in.a.language,.they.needed.to.have.a.way.to.encode.letters,.
numbers,. and. even. some. basic. communication. commands.
using.these.binary.codes.
Way.back.in.the.early.days.of.electronic.communications.
these.types.of.characters.were.encoded.using.dots.and.dashes.
over.radio.or.telephone.lines—some.of.you.may.have.even.
heard.of.and.remember.Morse.code..There.were.many.dif-
ferent.types.of.electronic.communications.codes.used.during.
the.early.days.of.electronic.communications,.but.the.one.we.
are.interested.in.was.developed.in.the.1960s.and.was.based.
on.teleprinter.coding. *
The. standards. committee. that. developed. it. decided. that.
seven.bits.were.the.optimal.number.of.units.to.code.every-
thing.they.needed.to.code,.and.that.an.eighth.bit.would.be.
allowed.for.error.checking..Thus.the.codes.it.perfectly.into.
the.bytes.that.computers.were.using.
These.codes.basically.created.a.standard.that.used.a.byte.
of. binary. code. to. correspond. to. upper-. and. lowercase. let-
ters,.numbers,.symbols,.and.communications.control.codes..

*. http://inventors.about.com/od/pstartinventions/a/printing.htm..

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