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  CONVERSIONS

  1. At the upward bound after school labs/lectures we learned about something very important about how our computers work. It may seem pretty complicated but once you learn it's really interesting. Do you know what the words analog or digital mean? Before I explain how to convert the two, it's best if you know what they mean. Analog relates to, or using calculation based on measurable quantities or measurable physical variables. Digital relates to using calculation directly with digits rather than measurable quantities. The differences between the two are:
Analog

1.DISCRETE

2. MANY VALUES

3. DIRECT MEASURES

4. NOISY COPIES

 Digital

1. CONTINUOUS

2. 1'S AND 0'S

3. YES OR NO

4. EXACT COPIES

Sometimes we need to convert these two back and forth for the computer to complete certain things. The three steps of analog/digital conversion are:

  1. Sampling (MHz)
  2. Quantizing (bits)
  3. Encoding 

The units that sampling rates are expressed in are Hz. An example of analog to digital conversion is scanning a picture because the encoding is 1's and 0's. An example of digital to analog is displaying a picture. As you can see it would be better for things to wok in the digital form since it goes much more faster. But maybe you might get more quality out of the analog form.