Character Encoding and Sound Representation
Q#1: What is the typical bit length used to represent each character in ASCII encoding, and how many characters are represented in the example “Virtual University”?
Answer:
- In ASCII encoding, each character is represented using 8 bits (1 byte).
- The example “Virtual University” has 18 characters, requiring 18 × 8 = 144 bits or 18 bytes.
Q#2: What is the limitation of ASCII codes in terms of the number of characters it can represent, and what organization introduced extensions to address this limitation?
Answer:
- ASCII can represent only 128 characters.
- To overcome this, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) introduced extensions to support additional symbols for Western languages.
Q#3: How does the Unicode system differ from ASCII, and what is the significance of Unicode’s unique patterns of 21 bits?
Answer:
- Unicode uses 21-bit patterns for each character, unlike ASCII’s 8 bits.
- This allows Unicode to support thousands of characters from multiple languages, including Chinese, Hebrew, and Japanese, making it suitable for global communication.
- ASCII is limited to a small set of characters, while Unicode provides international standardization.
Q#4: What is the advantage of using MIDI for representing sound, and how does it differ from traditional sound encoding methods?
Answer:
- MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) encodes instructions for producing music, not the audio data itself.
- This results in smaller file sizes compared to traditional methods that store audio directly.
- MIDI is similar to encoding the sheet music rather than the performed sound, making it efficient for storage and transmission.