The Magic of Digital
Digital technology has largely replaced analog technology due to its numerous advantages across various fields such as communication, business, and education. To understand the benefits of digital technology in terms of ease of information access and communication, we must first understand the basis of how digital technology works.
Let’s start with binary digits. Binary digits are just one form of digital representation. They are represented with a 0 or 1, hence “binary” for two. The term binary digits is shortened to ‘bits,’ taking the first part of “binary” and the ending of the word “digits.” The word ‘byte’ is used to represent 8 bits. In one byte, there are 256 possible values, the smallest being 0 and the largest being 255. Micro transistors are small voltage switches that control the flow of electrical current. These small voltage switches can either stop the flow of current or allow current to flow, representing either a binary 0 or binary 1. One main difference between analog and digital is the digital amplifier.
For a digital system such as the digital telephone, we can assume that six electrons are sent out to represent a 1 in binary code, while no electrons are sent out to represent a 0. The digital amplifier plays the role of sending out brand new 0s and 1s after recognizing either a 0 or 1 being sent based on the number of electrons. The digital amplifier can distinguish between the 0 and 1 even if the signal is corrupt. For example, no electrons represent a 0 in binary code; however, 1 or 2 electrons would also be recognized as a 0 even if the signal has been corrupted with extra electrons. The same goes for representing a 1 in binary code: a digital amplifier will recognize 6 electrons as a 1, but it will also recognize the corrupt signal of 4 or 5 electrons as a 1.
Parity bits can be added to the end of a binary line to help a digital amplifier detect corrupt codes that contain 3 electrons (halfway between 0 and 6 electrons). The parity bit denotes whether there is an even or odd number of ones in the line of numbers. The digital amplifier can recognize a mistake if the number of 1s in the line is supposed to be even instead of odd.
The digital amplifier is the magic of digital technology. While an analog system cannot differentiate between the signal and the noise, the digital amplifier allows a digital system to accurately separate the signal from the noise. This accurate separation of signal from noise makes information easily accessible using digital technology compared to analog.
