COMPSCI 1TA3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Sign Bit, Block Diagram, Program Counter

• School: McMaster University
• Department: Computer Science
• Course: COMPSCI 1TA3
• Professor: John Nakamura

Document Summary

The computer converts data into 0s and 1s. Bit - ( binary digit ) , the smallest possible unit of data that a computer can recognize. E. g 10 mbps - 10 megabytes per second. E. g 10 mbps - 10 megabits per second. A number - e. g integer, floating point. Other ( e. g sound, graphics, video , etc ) The program used to process the data will determine how the bits are interpreted". Integer numbers - for n bits, 1 bit is used as a sign bit, and the other n-1 bits are used to store the number. Overflow - when there are not enough bits to store the number. E. g if you had 8 bits , 1 would be for the sign, and 7 bits for the number. Real ( floating point ) numbers - made of a mantissa and a exponent , is similar to scientific. Mantissa - holds the significant digits, and a sign bit.