Digital Communication Summary – Samenvatting Digital Communication HC 1a: introduction to digital – Studeersnel

Samenv

atting Digit

al Communicatio

n

HC 1a: intr

oduction to di

gital communic

ation

What is di

gital communica

tion

: digital actually mean finger

and is derived fr

om Latin. Number

s ar

e

count

ed on finger

s, so

, if something is digit

al it means it can be c

ount

ed discret

ely (such as 0, 1, 2

et

c.). The simplest f

orm of digit

al is ‘on and off aka

1 and 2. The opposite of digit

al is analogue.

Analogue s

yst

ems consis

t of numbers/v

alues that ar

e con

tinuous (in a wa

ve f

orm). Boundaries

between

analogue and digital s

ys

tems ar

e becoming incr

easingly blurred thou

gh, as many digi

tal

sy

stems

try to emula

te analogue eff

ects.

There

are diff

eren

t forms of di

gital communic

ation methods:

* Machine – Machine

* Human – Human (via c

omputer in

terf

aces)

* Human – Machine

* Human – Int

erfa

ce

Digital c

ommunicati

on and normal face

-face

communication a

re very diff

er

ent. With f

ace-f

ace

communic

ation people can hear a

nd see each other inst

antly

. With comput

er mediated

communic

ation this is not alw

ays th

e case and this pr

esents multiple pr

oblems/intrica

cies.

Hist

ory of digital communica

tion

The inv

ention of digit

al communic

ation derives fr

om the need of peopl

e to communic

ate ov

er larg

e

dist

ances. The earliest f

orm of digi

tal communic

ation inv

olves drums. B

y using drums, people could

communic

ate b

y making music, encoding messag

es with specific drum-pa

tterns and even

copy

patter

n from normal spee

ch to communic

ate. Fr

om the drums, digi

tal communica

tion natur

ally

evol

ved through

these methods:

– Smok

e signals: simple di

gital sy

stem

using puffs of smok

e

– Gr

eek semafor

es: these w

ere pots with stick

s in them. The stick

s would lower a

nd raise pr

e-

det

ermined messages in or

der to communi

cat

e.

– Optical t

elegr

aphs: fully digital signals acc

ompanied with a codebook t

o d

ecipher the messag

es —->

the codebook c

ont

ained signals that ar

e commonly f

ound in speech.

– T

elegr

aph semafor

e network: a mor

e evolved f

orm of optical t

elegr

aphs.

Sommering ev

entually in

vent

ed the electrical t

elegr

aph which allowed f

or

communic

ation within a

ra

nge of 4 km. This lead t

o the ev

ental dev

elopment of the

morse code

.

– Mor

se code: a simple s

ys

tem rel

ying on two wires

(send and recie

ve). T

o mak

e this sy

stem mor

e

efficien

t people made use of st

atistical knowledg

e of language (which utt

erances we

re mos

t

commonly s

ent). —-> the eff

ectiveness of mor

se code ev

entually led t

o the constr

uction of the

T

r

a

nsatlantic c

able (1850) which led to

the so called Victor

ian Int

ernet.

HC 1b: the int

ernet

T

elegr

a

phs wer

e the firs

t f

orm of inst

ant messaging as w

e know it toda

y

. T

elegr

aph-operat

ors w

ould

send each other mess

ages in their spare tim

e, for e

xample, they w

ould tell jok

es to each other

.

In conclusion: the in

vention of the t

elegraph tr

ansformed

society

, it enabled the sending of time-

sensitive in

formation

which was an en

tirely new f

orm/class of communic

ation not known bef

ore.