topic: data types

Question 1

how is data on hard disks stored

Answer 1

using magnetism, north and south polarities represent the binary 1 and 0

Question 2

how is data on optical disks stored

Answer 2

in a way that causes light from a laser to be refracted in different ways -either its reflected off the surface of the disk or it isn’t, this represents the binary 1 and 0
lasers read/write data

Question 3

how is data on memory sticks/ solid state media stored

Answer 3

by trapped electrons or free electrons, representing binary 1 and 0

Question 4

does a bit pattern e.g 10010100 always mean the same thing

Answer 4

no it can be interpreted in many different ways and can represent many different things
e.g in character in ASCII or a denary number in 2s complement

Question 5

what are the 3 base number systems

Answer 5

binary - base 2
denary - base 10
hexidecimal - base 16

Question 6

what are hexidecimal number good for representing

Answer 6

colours
memory addresses
mac addresses