Vagueness and the Aftermath - A sporadic diary

[Laxie]

If you want me to attempt to explain bits, bytes, etc and put them in the context of pictures, these words on a screen, etc, then I'll have a stab at it.

Oh please do. I'm fascinated by this stuff, I just struggle to get my head around it.

I'm still waiting to hear about the Yak.

[Geo the Sarge]

If you want me to attempt to explain bits, bytes, etc and put them in the context of pictures, these words on a screen, etc, then I'll have a stab at it.

Oh please do. I'm fascinated by this stuff, I just struggle to get my head around it.

I'm still waiting to hear about the Yak.

[Machka]

If you want me to attempt to explain bits, bytes, etc and put them in the context of pictures, these words on a screen, etc, then I'll have a stab at it.

Oh please do. I'm fascinated by this stuff, I just struggle to get my head around it.

I'll try! Probably going to use a lot of simplifications but you should get the gist.

At the deepest level computers work in binary - 1's and 0's and nothing else.  These are represented in the computer by an electric current or not.  This current is in a transistor which is basically a switch that will be in one position or the other.

Everything you see or hear from a computer is binary data converted to a format we can understand.

Take the word BIRD for example.

this is stored in a computer as 4 bytes

B I R D

Now a computer doesn't work with letters, or English or words so it needs to encode it into a binary code.

Most computers encode this using something called ASCII http://www.asciitable.com/

A byte is 8 bits (just think of a bit as a physical transistor or switch within the computer)

So can be

00000000 through to 11111111 in binary

or

0 to 255 in decimal

So each byte can encode any of 256 characters.

Looking at the ASCII table

B = 66 in decimal

I = 73 in decimal

R = 82 in decimal

D = 68 in decimal

when storing that in a computer that gets converted to binary so

B = 66 in decimal = 01000010 in binary

I = 73 in decimal = 01001001 in binary

R = 82 in decimal = 01010010 in binary

D = 68 in decimal = 01000100 in binary

so BIRD would get stored as 01000010 01001001 01010010 01000100

by switching 32 transistors into their respective on an off positions.

[RED-DOG]

So are you saying that text storage needs 8 transistors per letter?

[Machka]

Images...

My Canon SX 220 HS is a 12.1 Mega pixel camera.  Looking at the manual the largest picture it will take is 4000 x 3000 pixels.

4000 x 3000 = 12,000,000

I guess the missing 0.1 million is used for image stabilisation.

So each picture you take is taking 12 million bits of information, actually it's more than that as it's also recording colour information (red, green blue), so it's probably 3 x 24 x 12 million bits of information, plus more probably!

I'm not going to attempt to explain how that works so imagine a really simple camera, a 64 bit camera or 8 x 8 pixel camera.

It only records black and white so all we are about is the on or off state of each bit / pixel.

Let's 'photograph' a letter A.

I found a nice imagine to take a 'photo' of.

As the sensor looks at the A it 'sees' this.



Luckily the image creator has already switch on the bits and marked them for me.

our 64 bits of information get recorded as

00001110
00010001
00010001
00010001
00011111
00010001
00010001
00010001

and written to the memory card, by switching 64 transistors into their on or off states as a data stream.

00001110 00010001 00010001 00010001 00011111 00010001 00010001 00010001

Later when we get home we upload our 'picture' to the computer by copying the

00001110 00010001 00010001 00010001 00011111 00010001 00010001 00010001

to the computer hard drive.

We then want to view our 'picture'

So we load our image viewing software, open our 'picture' and it reads in the data

00001110 00010001 00010001 00010001 00011111 00010001 00010001 00010001

Somewhere in the data file it will also have addition meta data (EXIF data) telling the image viewing software the size 64 bit, shape 8 x 8, and other information it needs to know.

So it sees it's an 8 x 8 image.

converts 00001110 00010001 00010001 00010001 00011111 00010001 00010001 00010001

back to

00001110
00010001
00010001
00010001
00011111
00010001
00010001
00010001

and switches on the pixels on your monitor to correspond with the bits above.

giving you this.



Marvelous stuff eh?

[Machka]

So are you saying that text storage needs 8 transistors per letter?

That would be strictly true if we were all still using Commodore 64's when ASCII was all they needed, even that's not exactly true, but it's a bit more complicated now.

I did say I simplified.

These days most computers use Unicode as they are expected to handle thousands of different characters, even if we don't use them.  Imagine a chinese character set, they probably need a few thousand.  I think Unicode supports up to 1.1 million different characters using up to 4 Bytes or 32 bits.  So up to 32 transistors. Ish.

[RED-DOG]

Images...

My Canon SX 220 HS is a 12.1 Mega pixel camera.  Looking at the manual the largest picture it will take is 4000 x 3000 pixels.

4000 x 3000 = 12,000,000

I guess the missing 0.1 million is used for image stabilisation.

So each picture you take is taking 12 million bits of information, actually it's more than that as it's also recording colour information (red, green blue), so it's probably 3 x 24 x 12 million bits of information, plus more probably!

I'm not going to attempt to explain how that works so imagine a really simple camera, a 64 bit camera or 8 x 8 pixel camera.

It only records black and white so all we are about is the on or off state of each bit / pixel.

Let's 'photograph' a letter A.

I found a nice imagine to take a 'photo' of.

As the sensor looks at the A it 'sees' this.



Luckily the image creator has already switch on the bits and marked them for me.

our 64 bits of information get recorded as

00001110
00010001
00010001
00010001
00011111
00010001
00010001
00010001

and written to the memory card, by switching 64 transistors into their on or off states as a data stream.

00001110 00010001 00010001 00010001 00011111 00010001 00010001 00010001

Later when we get home we upload our 'picture' to the computer by copying the

00001110 00010001 00010001 00010001 00011111 00010001 00010001 00010001

to the computer hard drive.

We then want to view our 'picture'

So we load our image viewing software, open our 'picture' and it reads in the data

00001110 00010001 00010001 00010001 00011111 00010001 00010001 00010001

Somewhere in the data file it will also have addition meta data (EXIF data) telling the image viewing software the size 64 bit, shape 8 x 8, and other information it needs to know.

So it sees it's an 8 x 8 image.

converts 00001110 00010001 00010001 00010001 00011111 00010001 00010001 00010001

back to

00001110
00010001
00010001
00010001
00011111
00010001
00010001
00010001

and switches on the pixels on your monitor to correspond with the bits above.

giving you this.



Marvelous stuff eh?

Brilliant!

What a great explanation. Thank you for taking the time.

[sovietsong]

There are 1 0 types of people in the world. Those that understand binary and those that dont...

[RED-DOG]

There are 1 0 types of people in the world. Those that understand binary and those that dont...

I laughed at that joke the last time I saw it, but now I know what I was laughing at.

[RED-DOG]

i was out on my bike today when I spotted this. It was about 17 miles away across some fields.

I did my best to get a decent shot of it. I tried everything including both optical zoom and digital zoom while leaning froward with my glasses on. 

Click to see full-size image.

Click to see full-size image.

[RED-DOG]

Then I parked my bike up and set off across the fields in an attempt to get closer. but just as I started out, another one rocked up and then they both buggered off together.

Click to see full-size image.

Click to see full-size image.

[pokerfan]

i was out on my bike today when I spotted this. It was about 17 miles away across some fields.

That's some zoom !

[RED-DOG]

What a gorgeous day. I've done my paperwork, my shopping and my bike ride, now gonna chill in front of the TV for an hour.

Discovery channels....  What to watch? So many good progs on atm

[outragous76]

What a gorgeous day. I've done my paperwork, my shopping and my bike ride, now gonna chill in front of the TV for an hour.

Discovery channels....  What to watch? So many good progs on atm

I recently watched the Costa concordia documentary on channel 4 OD (on line) and the most daring raid of the Falklands (also 4OD) - but worthy viewing

[RED-DOG]

What a gorgeous day. I've done my paperwork, my shopping and my bike ride, now gonna chill in front of the TV for an hour.

Discovery channels....  What to watch? So many good progs on atm

I recently watched the Costa concordia documentary on channel 4 OD (on line) and the most daring raid of the Falklands (also 4OD) - but worthy viewing

I've gone for Air Crash Investigation.

Saw the Concordia docu, v good.