Logic Gates

In this post, we are going to talk about logic gates.

A logic gate is an electronic device that operates on a collection of binary inputs and produces a binary output.

There are 5 types of logic gates that, which are OR, AND, NOT, NAND (NOT AND) and NOR (NOT OR).

Logic Gates

The NOT gate has only one input and one output.

The AND gate allows two or more inputs and has one output. The output is the Boolean product or their values.

The OR gate allows two or more inputs and has one output. The output is the Boolean sum or their values.

The NAND gate allows two or more inputs and has one output. NAND is an inverted AND gate.

The NOR gate allows two or more inputs and has one output. NOR gate is and inverted OR gate.

That's all for today, thank you! :)

The Language of Computer

I can speak in Malay and English well, and understand a little bit of Arabic too - there are thousands of languages used by people around the world, but do you know that our computers only understand one language ?

The language of computer is the binary system, which only consists of the digit 0 and 1.

A bit is the smallest unit of data a computer can process which consists of 1 or 0.

Meanwhile, a byte is 8 bits grouped together as a unit. For example, 11110000.

So, the data and instructions that we input in our computers can be represented electronically by using bits and bytes.

How can a computer represents non-numeric characters (such as what you are reading now)?

The answer is: INFORMATION CODING SCHEMES!

A coding system is the patterns of 0s and 1s combinations used to represent characters. The purpose of the coding system is to standardise computer language, so that all the computers around the world understand the same language.

There are three coding schemes, that is ASCII, EBCDIC and Unicode.

ASCII ( ⁱ/ˈæski/ ASS-kee) stands for American Standard Code for Information Interchange. It is the most widely used coding scheme, and it uses 8 bits to represent a character. In total, ASCII coding scheme can represent 256 different characters. This coding scheme is used in minicomputers and personal computers.

The advantage of using ASCII coding scheme is it only use 8 bits, therefore storing data takes up less memory.

EBCDIC (pronounced either "ehb-suh-dik" or "ehb-kuh-dik") stands Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code. It is considered to be an obsolete coding system but is still used in some equipment, mainly in order to allow for continued use of software written many years ago that expects an EBCDIC communication environment. EBCDIC also uses 8 bits to represent a character like ASCII and can represent a total of 256 different characters. It is used in IBM mainframe computers and some IBM midrange systems and high end servers.

The 256 characters and symbols that are represented by ASCII and EBCDIC codes are sufficient for English and Westerns European languages. 

However, they are not large enough for other languages that uses different alphabets and symbols.

So here comes Unicode to the rescue!

UNICODE stands for Unique, Universal, and Uniform character enCoding. Unicode uses 16 bits to represent a character, therefore it can represent a total of 65, 536 different characters in total, making it possible to symbolize all the world's written language. Unicode is implemented in several operating systems including Windows, Mac OS, and Linux.

The advantage of using the Unicode coding system that it includes the world's current languages, classical and historical languages and symbols.

That is all for now, thank you! 

Get to know our computers!

Hi and greetings to all!

So basically each and every one of us had used a computer at least once in our life, in fact many of us use the computer everyday! The modern era nowadays compelled us to use the computer in our daily life, but do we actually know how our computer works?

The first most important question is, what is a computer?

A computer is an electronic device that performs four basic operations: input, process, output and storage.

So how does computers process all the information ?

Here is the standard Input-Process-Output (IPO) model that shows the cycle of information processing:

IPO model

Input means we enter the data into the computer. For example, we type in the words into the computer using the keyboard.

Process means the computer is transforming the data into information.

Output means the result is presented. For example, the words are displayed on the monitor screen.

Storage means the data, programs or outputs are saved for future use.

Most people think that data and information is the same thing, however that statement is wrong.

In short, information is data that has been processed into meaningful form and is useful to us.

So the next time you use the computer, you will already know which part of the process you're doing!

As I'm typing this post, I am actually inserting the data (input) and the computer is processing my data into information (process) and as you can read this on your screen, that is the output and as I saved this post into my blogger account, that's the storage part.

Ta-da! New knowledge gained every day :)

Thinking Maps: Making Life Easier!

Reading notes can be boring at times, we might find ourselves dosing off when we read through all the long winding paragraphs. But worry not, we have thinking maps to the rescue! Thinking maps makes understanding and memorizing facts easier, and in a more fun way too.

For more information on thinking maps, you guys can head out here (click).

Here is a a few thinking maps that I had done based on the subtopics in Chapter 1 (Introduction to Technology) and Chapter 2 (Computer System). Enjoy!

Double Bubble Map

Flow Map 

Tree Map

Tree Map

Thanks for reading and hopefully it's beneficial to you! :)

Brochure : A Look Into Chapter 1

The first chapter in Science Computer for Semester 1 (SC015) is Introduction to Information Technology. Here is a brochure to summarize this topic:

1

2

Thanks for reading !