Introduction to Computer Architecture and Data Representation

These flashcards cover essential vocabulary related to data representation in computing systems, focusing on character encoding and data formats.

ASCII

American Standard Code for Information Interchange, a 7-bit character encoding standard.

EBCDIC

Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code, an 8-bit character encoding used mainly on IBM mainframes.

UTF-8

A variable-width character encoding that can represent every character in the Unicode character set.

Collating Sequence

The order in which characters are arranged for sorting and searching; differs between ASCII and EBCDIC.

Binary Format

A way of representing data using two symbols, typically 0 and 1, that computers process.

Alphanumeric Data

Data that consists of both letters (a-z, A-Z) and numbers (0-9).

Character Encoding

The process of converting human-understandable characters to computer-understandable binary patterns.

Data Types

Categories that describe the type of data (e.g., numeric, alphanumeric) that can be processed by a computer.

Binary-coded Decimal (BCD)

An early character code system that represents decimal digits in binary form.

Unicode

A character encoding standard that aims to support every character in every language.

Control Characters

Special characters that do not represent printable symbols but control the operation of devices.

Multilingual Support

The capability of Unicode to define codes for various character-based alphabets and languages.

Input Device

A device that provides data to a computer, such as a keyboard or mouse.