计算机体系英语,深入理解计算机系统英文原版ch2.pdf

Chapter 2

Representing and Manipulating

Information

Modern computers store and process information represented as two-valued signals. These lowly binary

digits, or bits, form the basis of the digital revolution. The familiar decimal, or base-10, representation has

been in use for over 1000 years, having been developed in India, improved by Arab mathematicians in the

12th century, and brought to the West in the 13th century by the Italian mathematician Leonardo Pisano

(c. 1170 – c. 1250), better known as Fibonacci. Using decimal notation is natural for ten-fingered humans,

but binary values work better when building machines that store and process information. Two-valued

signals can readily be represented, stored, and transmitted, for example, as the presence or absence of a

hole in a punched card, as a high or low voltage on a wire, or as a magnetic domain oriented clockwise or

counterclockwise. The electronic circuitry for storing and performing computations on two-valued signals

is very simple and reliable, enabling manufacturers to integrate millions, or even billions, of such circuits

on a single silicon chip.

In isolation, a single bit is not very useful. When we group bits together and apply some interpretation that

gives meaning to the different possible bit patterns, however, we can represent the elements of any finite set.

For example, using a binary number system, we can use groups of bits to encode nonnegative numbers. By

using a standard character code, we can encode the letters and symbols in a document. We cover both of

these encodings in this chapter, as well as encodings to represent negative numbers and to approximate real

numbers.

We consider the three most important representations of numbers. Unsigned encodings are based on tradi-

tional binary notation, representing numbers greater than or equal to 0. Two’s-complement encodings are

the most common way to represent signed integers,