Coding
A Character is a symbol that has a common meaning for some group of people (a, ?, 6)
In data communications, characters are represented by groups of bits (a bit = 1 or 0)
A Coding Scheme or Code is the alphabet of any given computer system
A byte is a group of consecutive bits that form a character (or a unit) (e.g., 5,6,7,8 or 9 bits) (error checking takes some number of bits)
Coding is the representation of a set of symbols with another set of symbols (e.g., A = 1000001; in some other coding scheme; A = 11000)
Two predominant coding schemes in the U.S.:
- United States of America Standard Code for Information Exchange USASCII, or ASCII (7 or 8 bit versions)
- Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code EBCDIC (IBM’s standard)