What does a digital computer process?

Digital computers deal with "digital quantities". Because there are only two basic working states of a computer: 0 and 1, and the sampling of external information by a digital computer system cannot be strictly continuous, it must only complete one sampling in a cycle, so all digital processing in the digital system is done quantity.

Classified according to the electrical signals used by computers, electronic computers are divided into digital computers and analog computers. Among them, digital computers process "digital quantities" .

Digital electronic computers are the mainstream in the electronic computer industry in the world today. Their internal processing is an electrical signal called a symbolic signal or a digital signal. Its main feature is "discrete", and there cannot be a third symbol between two adjacent symbols. Due to this difference in signal processing, its composition and performance are superior to analog electronic computers.

Digital quantity (discrete quantity) corresponds to analog quantity (continuous quantity). The latter is common in the natural world and can be analyzed using ordinary mathematical methods. Digital quantities are used in information processed by computers. Because there are only two basic working states of a computer: 0 and 1, and the sampling of external information by a digital computer system cannot be strictly continuous, it must only complete one sampling in a cycle, so all digital processing in the digital system is done quantity. Moreover, digital quantities cannot be analyzed entirely by ordinary mathematical methods, and there are special mathematical methods for their analysis.

Digital quantities are discrete physical quantities in time and quantity. They are called digital quantities. The signals that represent digital quantities are called digital signals. The electronic circuits that work under digital signals are called digital circuits.

For example: when using an electronic circuit to record the number of parts output from an automatic production line, a signal is given to the electronic circuit every time a part is sent out, so that it is recorded as 1, and the signal is added to the electronic circuit when no parts are sent out. is 0, and the location is a count. It can be seen that the signal of the number of parts is discontinuous in both time and quantity, so it is a digital signal. The smallest quantity unit is 1.

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