Hardware
Hardware collection devices organise data by digitising it. Digitising is the process of translating data into the binary digits (bits) that can be stored and processed by a computer. Every type of data must be represented digitally in the form of bits to be used by a computer.
- Text: All characters such as letters, numerals, punctuation keys, spaces and special symbols are converted into binary using a standard method of conversion such as ASCII or EBCDIC. These work by assigning each character with a decimal number and converting this number into binary code
- Images: Images are divided into tiny dots called pixels. One or more bits are assigned to each pixel. The relationship between the image and the bits in memory is called bit-mapping. The number of bits assigned to each pixel depends on the number of tones and colours used. The quality of a digitised image is improved by increasing the number of pixels or increasing the tones and colour .
- Audio:Sound is digitised using a method called sampling. This involves taking a number of samples or ‘slices’ of the sound wave. This is called the sampling rate. Each sample is assigned a number of bits. This is called the sample size. Better quality sound is achieved by increasing the sampling rate and/or the sampling size
Software
Application software organises data.
- Multimedia is the presentation of information using text, graphics, animation, audio and video. It uses at least three of these media types. Data is organised by combining data in different formats. Audio software is used to organise audio and animation software for video.
- Word processing is the most widely used application software. It allows characters to be entered and documents to be created. Word processing is used to write letters, reports, assignments, articles and books. Data is organised when creating and saving a document.
- Desktop publishing is the use of specialised software to combine text and graphics to create a document. It is used to create many different types of publications such as magazines, newspapers and books. Data is organised by combining data in different formats. Publications are built by arranging different design elements such as headings, columns of text and graphics.
- A spreadsheet uses a rectangular grid made up of rows and columns to organise and store data that requires some type of calculation. A cell is the intersection of a row and column. The organisation of data involves entering data into a cell as a label, value or formula. Spreadsheets perform calculations on values (numbers) and not labels (text).