IGCSE COMPUTER

SCIENCE
Theory of Computer Science – Communication
Outlines

■ Communication, Networks and Internet

■ Data Transmission
■ Error Handling
■ Networks
■ The Internet
■ Cloud Computing
Outlines

■ Data transmission
– Simplex, half and full duplex
– Serial and parallel
– Synchronous and asynchronous
– Universal serial bus and its types
■ Error handling
■ Networks
– Intranet
– Internet
Communication, Networks and Internet

■ Communication in computers:
– Happens on different levels, from internal components to networks
– Follow certain standards or protocols
■ A Network is a collection of computers, which follow communication principles to
share resources
■ Internet is the global network of computers
Data transmission

■ Data transmission modes

– Simplex
– Half duplex
– Full duplex
■ Serial and parallel transmission
■ Synchronous and asynchronous transmission
■ Universal serial bus
Data transmission - Simplex

■ In simplex transmission, one party

can only send data and other can only
receive
■ Examples:
– Printer
– TV transmission
– Radio
– GPS
Data transmission – Half duplex

■ In half-duplex transmission, both parties can send and receive data

■ When one party is sending data, the other can only receive
■ When one party is receiving data, the other can only send
■ Examples:
– Walkie-talkie
– WhatsApp audio messaging
– Debates?!
Data transmission – Full duplex

■ In full-duplex transmission, both parties can send and receive data simultaneously
■ Examples:
– Telephone
– Chatting
– Video conference
Data transmission – Serial

■ In serial communication, data is sent bit by bit via a single line

■ Serial communication is used when transmitting data at long distances
■ Transmission is reliable
■ Data transmission is slower
■ Delay between two bits does not cause data loss
■ Examples:
– USB flash drive
– Headphones
Data transmission – Parallel

■ In parallel communication, data is sent via multiple lines

■ Data transmission is fast, relevant to the number of lines
■ Reliability reduces with the increase in distance due to factors like resistance
■ Parallel transmission is used when transmitting data at short distances
■ Most communication between CPU and other internal components uses parallel
transmission using 8 to 64 lines called buses
■ Examples:
– Printer
– Graphics Processing
Data transmission – Asynchronous

■ In asynchronous transmission, the bits are sent in form of small packets

■ Each packet has a start and stop bit (also called control bit), which helps the receiver
separate out packets
■ Control bit makes transmission of larger volume of data possible with reliability
■ There is an over head of control bits in each packet
■ Examples:
– USB connections
– Email
– SMS
– Single page websites
Data transmission – Synchronous

■ In synchronous transmission, the bits are sent as a continuous stream of large data blocks
■ The size of data blocks is not fixed. The time interval of transmission is fixed
■ Predefined clocking determines the beginning and end of data arrival
■ The receiver receives data over a specific time and then combines all the bits in form of
bytes
■ Optimized for continuous streaming on low bandwidth, because no bit overhead is
required
■ Examples:
– Voice chat
– Video streaming
Data transmission – USB

■ Universal Serial Bus is among one of the most adopted technologies, which uses a
common standard for most data transfers
■ A USB port (or connector) has 4 lines (2 for power and 2 for data transmission)
■ Data transmission is asynchronous
■ When a devices is connected to computer using USB port, computer detects a small
change in voltage and establishes connection with the device
■ Since most USB devices follow same standard, therefore they are compatible with most
computers and operating systems
■ There are 3 different types and 4 versions of USB. The type represents USB connector’s
physical appearance, while version represents speed of transfer
Data transmission – USB
■ Type A connector is the oldest one and
becoming obsolete
■ Type B is widely used in printers and
scanners
■ Type A/B mini were used in older portable
devices like tablets and MP3 players
■ Type A/B micro is widely used in latest
smartphones
■ USB 3 Type B Micro is used in portable
drives and external DVD
■ USB 3 Type-C is the latest of all:
– It is the fastest
– Can be plugged both ways
– Both ends of the cable are same (i.e.
male)
Data transmission – USB

■ There are 4 different versions of USB:

– 1.1 (low speed): up to 1.5Mpbs (15,728,640 bits per second)
– 1.1: up to 12Mbps (12,582,912 bits per second)
– 2.0: up to 480Mbps (503,316,480 bits per second)
– 3.0: up to 5Gbps (5,368,709,120 bits per second)
Note! When Mbps means bits per second; MBps means bytes per second
Data transmission – Error handling

■ Data transmission error means loss of data during transportation from sender to receiver
■ Data is considered erroneous if the bits received and bits sent are sent are not exactly
same
■ Error during transmission may occur due to various factors like voltage drop, electric
resistance, physical damage in transmission lines, and incompatible software/hardware.
Data transmission – Error handling

■ There are four main techniques to identify whether an error occurred during
transmitting data:
– Parity check
– ARQ (Automatic Repeat reQuest)
– Checksum
– Echo
Data transmission – Error handling
Parity check

■ Parity check is a simple technique to detect whether data is received correctly or not.
■ In each data packet, a bit is reserved to tell the receiver whether the number of bits in
the packet is Odd or Even.
■ For example, if a sender is sending a value 1 1 1 0 0 0. Then a parity bit is added at the
end of the value:
– If the parity bit is checking “Even” number of bits, then a bit with value 1 will be
appended: 1 1 1 0 0 0 1. This will tell the receiver that the number of 1 bits should
be even.
– If the parity bit is checking “Odd” number of bits, then a bit with value 0 will be
appended : 1 1 1 0 0 0 0. This will tell the receiver that the number of 1 bits should
be odd.
Data transmission – Error handling
Parity check

7-bit Binary Value No. of bits Even parity Odd parity

0000000 0 0 00000000 00000001
0000010 2 1 00000101 00000100
0000111 7 3 00001111 00001110
0001010 A16 2 00010100 00010101
1111111 7F16 ? ? ?
Data transmission – Error handling
ARQ

■ ARQ (Automatic Repeat reQuest) check is an error detection technique to detect

whether data is received completely or not.
■ A packet of data is sent from sender to receiver. Receiver sends back a signal to sender
acknowledging that the data packet has been received.
■ If there is no signal from receiver within a certain time, then the data package is sent
again.
■ If the data within a packet gets corrupted (for example: 110011 becomes 001100) then
ARQ will still send back the acknowledgement signal.
Data transmission – Error handling
ARQ
Data transmission – Error handling
Checksum

■ Checksum is a small value, which is calculated from a data packet using a checksum
function (a.k.a. checksum algorithm).
■ The sender sends the data package as well as a checksum value to the receiver.
■ The receiver receives data and calculates the checksum again. If the checksum does not
match with the sender’s checksum, then there is some error in the data received.
■ There are many checksum algorithms like longitudinal redundancy check, modular sum,
Luhn algorithm, etc. We can create our own functions as well.
■ For example, calculate the sum of all 1’s on Odd positions and all 1’s on Even positions.
Data transmission – Error handling
Checksum

■ Suppose a data packet is 4 bytes: 11110000 10011101 00111010 01010101

■ The sender will first calculate checksum using our algorithm:
■ The bits on Odd positions are: 1_1_0_0_ 1_0_1_0_ 0_1_1_1_ 0_0_0_0_
■ The sum of these bits is 7 = 0111
■ The bits on Even positions are: _1_1_0_0 _0_1_1_1 _0_1_0_0 _1_1_1_1
■ The sum of these bits is 10 = 1010
■ Now the sender will send the packet with checksum:
■ 11110000 10011101 00111010 01010101 01111010
■ The receiver will recalculate the sum of 1’s in Odd and Even positions again in the first 4 bytes
of data, and match them with the checksum byte.
■ If there was any error in the data, then the checksum will not match.
Data transmission – Error handling
Checksum

■ Another example, let’s say you want to send a hand written letter to your family. The
letter says:
Assalamu alaekum brother, the bearer of this letter is my business partner. Please give
him 6000 (Six thousand) rupees on my behalf. I will return to you when I come back
home tomorrow in sha Allah.
Allah hafiz. Your Big B
■ Say the carrier of this letter tries to be creative and changes Six to Sixty and adds
another zero to the number 6000.
■ How would your brother know if the letter was fabricated?
■ Checksum could be an answer. Say you and your brother both agree that whatever
written conversation you have with each other will have a checksum to ensure
correctness.
Data transmission – Error handling
Checksum

■ Let’s say your checksum algorithm is like this:

■ Checksum = Sum of digits + (Sum of vowels/ Sum of consonants)
■ Therefore, your letter will have a number at the end representing the checksum:
Assalamu alaekum brother, the bearer of this letter is my business partner. Please give
him 6000 (Six thousand) rupees on my behalf. I will return to you when I come back
home tomorrow in sha Allah.
Allah hafiz. Your Big B
■ This text contains 4 digits, 68 vowels and 105 consonants. Therefore: checksum = 4.647
■ Now, when your brother calculates the checksum again on receiving the letter. Guess
what happens?
Data transmission – Error handling
Checksum

■ A simple and common algorithm used to calculate checksum is this:

– If the sum of all bytes in the block of data is <= 255, then the sum can be stored in 1
byte. Therefore the sum itself is the checksum
– If the sum is > 255, then we use a checksum algorithm which works as follows:
■ Let X be the sum of bytes
■ Let Y = Rounded value of X / 256
■ Let Z = Y x 256
■ Then checksum = X – Z
■ For example, if the sum of data is X = 1288, then checksum will be:
– Y = ROUND(1288/256) = ROUND(5.03) = 5
– Z = 5 * 256 = 1280
– Checksum = 1288 – 1280 = 8
Data transmission – Error handling
Echo check

■ This technique is very simple. The sender transmits data and receiver receives it. Once
the data is received completely, it is sent back to sender. The sender then compares it
with original data to see if both copies are same.
■ There are two problems with this method:
– It has an overhead of the data size
– It is unreliable
Networks

■ A computer network is a collection of

computers, combined to share
resources.
■ Networks by Scale
– LAN
– MAN
– WAN
■ The Internet
The Internet

■ Internet is a global network of interconnected networks

■ Internet Structure:
– Internet Service Providers
– Computer Identification using IP Address
– Network Interface Card Identification using MAC Address
– Website and Web Address
■ HTML
■ HTTP
HTML

■ Common Language of Internet

■ Hyper-Text Markup Language
■ Styling
■ Scripts
■ XML
■ Browsers
HTTP

■ A Protocol for Internet

■ Status Codes and Error Messages
■ Error 404
■ SSL Encryption (HTTPS)
Cloud Computing
Communications exercise
■ Write difference between USB Type and Version in one sentence.
■ Calculate Even and Odd parities of: 10101001 and 01110001
■ Search Luhn check digit formula and calculate check digit of:
– 10
– 1044
■ What do the following status codes mean in HTTP?
– 401
– 404
– 500
– 200
Challenge

■ Go to https://www.w3schools.com/html and learn HTML

■ Create a title page for E-Squared academy using HTML only