Interrelationship between Software and Hardware

This topic has 3 main sections - click through for subpages:

1. Representation of data

• Characters: ASCII & Unicode
• Integers (Whole Numbers)
  • Unsigned Integers in Binary, Denary & Hexadecimal
  • Basic Arithmetic on Integers
  • Signed Integers: Sign & Modulus, 1's and 2's complement
    • Comparison of different options.
• Real/Rational Numbers: Floating point IEEE754 specification
  • Advantages & Disadvantages (large, small, rounding errors)
• Extension: Basic Arithmetic on Floats

2. Logic Circuits

• Basic Gates: AND, OR, NOT, NAND, NOR, XOR.
• Logic Circuits
  • Truth Tables
• Boolean algebra: Simplification & Describing a Circuit
  • Circuit Design from inputs and outputs
• Specialty circuits, including: half adder, full adder, flip-flops

3. Data Streams and Programming Hardware Devices

• Data Stream: Format (Header, Data, Footer),
  • Control Characters
  • Using Hardware Specifications (Documentation)
• Processing data from Input Sensors
• Generating output for a particular device
• Issues with interpreting Data Streams