- Current section: Introduction
- Learning outcomes
- 1 Aims
- 2 The worlds we live in
- 3 Analogue information: digital representation
- 4 Crossing the boundary
- 5 Going back
- 6 What if? … changing the digital world
- 7 Crossing the boundary – a final word
- 8 Summary
- Acknowledgements
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Crossing the boundary - analogue universe, digital worlds
How does the computer's peculiar binary world of digital entities differ from...
How does the computer's peculiar binary world of digital entities differ from our analogue world of colour, sound, taste and touch? This unit explores the way in which information, in the form of text, still and moving images, and sound can cross the boundary from the analogue universe into a digital world.
Having studied this unit, you should be able to:
- give examples of quantities that are intrinsically analogue, and quantities that are intrinsically discrete/digital;
- define the terms ‘bit’, ‘byte’ and ‘word’;
- outline how visual information, such as pictures, diagrams and moving images can be expressed numerically inside a computer;
- describe how sounds such as speech and music can be represented inside a computer in terms of numbers.
- Duration: 20 hours
- Published on: Tuesday 12th July 2011
- Level: Introductory
- Posted under: Computing and ICT
Contents
Crossing the boundary - analogue universe, digital worlds
Introduction

This unit introduces the important distinction between our analogue world of colour, sound, taste and touch and the computer's peculiar binary world of digital entities. Concepts of the analogue universe in which we live and the digital world we create are explained. The way in which information, in the form of text, still and moving images, and sound can cross the boundary from the analogue universe into a digital world is explored.
This unit is from our archive and is an adapted extract from Data, computing and information (M150) which is no longer taught by The Open University. If you want to study formally with us, you may wish to explore other courses we offer in this subject area [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] .
Archive content
This is an extract from an Open University course which is no longer available to new students. If you found this interesting you could explore more free Computing and ICT course units or view the range of currently available OU Computing and ICT courses.
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- Creative-Commons: The Open University is proud to release this free course under a Creative Commons licence. However, any third-party materials featured within it are used with permission and are not ours to give away. These materials are not subject to the Creative Commons licence. See terms and conditions. Full details can be found in the Acknowledgements section.
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