Encoding Information

Information is encoded as patterns of ones and zeros. They are symbols whose meaning can be used according necessities. It can represent almost everything, so we canencode for instance images, sounds, numbers or text. “Thus, many flip-flops, constructed as very small electrical circuits, can be used inside a computer as a means ofrecording information that is encoded as patterns of 0s and 1s.” ( J Glenn Brookshear ,(2001) pp: 24) It is really a very straightforward and efficient system, whichfits perfectly in computer’s world and for its simplicity and efficiency it has been used since the beginning.
We call byte a row of 8 bits.

For improving efficiencyof system there are many ways and almost ever it is improved by using bit patterns. One way to optimize the process because we have very long pattern of bits is tosimplify the representation of it. Trough hexadecimal notation we use a single symbol for representing a pattern of four bits. It does more compact and intelligible(T.forester. (1985: pp 6).
For representing text many codes have been designed. ASCII – American Standard Code for Information Interchange- uses bit patterns of length seven butit has problems with other languages different of English. Unicode was developed for avoiding ASCII’s problems and it has had successful because several companies havedeveloped it together.
For encoding numbers it is used binary notation, two’s complement notation and floating-point notation for representing fractional parts.J.Glenn Brookshear (2011) Computer Science: An Overview. 11th Edition Addison-Westley.

T.Forester(1985). The Information Technology Revolution. MIT Press Edition.