DIGITAL DESIGN Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Chessboard, Dvd
11 Sep 2021
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One characteristic of digital systems is their ability to represent and manipulate discrete elements of information. Any set that is restricted to a finite number of elements contains discrete information. Examples of discrete sets are the 10 decimal digits, the 26 letters of the alphabet, the 52 playing cards, and the 64 squares of a chessboard. Early digital computers were used for numeric computations. In this case, the discrete elements were the digits. From this application, the term digital computer emerged. Discrete elements of information are represented in a digital system by physical quantities called signals. Electrical signals such as voltages and currents are the most common. Electronic devices called transistors predominate in the circuitry that implements these signals. The signals in most present day electronic digital systems use just two discrete values and are therefore said to be binary. A binary digit, called a bit, has two values: 0 and 1.
