Students learn about:

Students learn to:

Representation of data within the computer

•  character representation, namely:

–  ASCII

–  hexadecimal

•  integer representation, including:

–  sign and modulus

–  one’s complement

–  two’s complement

•  representation of fractions, namely:

–  floating point or real

•  binary arithmetic, including:

–  addition

–  subtraction using two’s complement representation

–  multiplication, shift and add

–  division, shift and subtract

•  convert integers between binary and decimal representation

•  interpret the binary representation of data

•  recognise situations in which data can be misinterpreted by the software

•  perform arithmetic operations in binary

Electronic circuits to perform standard software operations

•  logic gates, including:

– AND, OR, NOT, NAND, NOR, XOR

•  truth tables

•  circuit design steps

– identify inputs and outputs

– identify required components

– check solution with a truth table

– evaluate the circuit design

•  specialty circuits, including:

– half adder

– full adder

– flip-flops as a memory store

•   generate truth tables for a given circuit

•   describe the purpose of a circuit from its truth table

•   design a circuit to solve a given problem and use a truth table to verify the design

•   explain how a flip-flop can be used in the storage and shifting of a bit in memory

•   build and test a circuit using integrated circuits or use a software package

•   simulate the testing of a circuit for both user-designed circuits and the specialty circuits

•   recognise the cyclical approach to circuit design

•   modify an existing circuit design to reflect changed requirements

Programming of hardware devices

•   the input data stream from sensor and other devices

–  header information

–  data characters

–  trailer information

–  control characters

–  hardware specifications

–  documentation

•   processing of data stream

–  the need to recognise and strip control characters

–  counting the data characters

–  extracting the data

•   generating output to an appropriate output device

–  required header information

–  required control characters

–  data

–  required trailer information

•   control systems

–  responding to sensor information

–  specifying motor operations

•   printer operation

–  control characters for features, including page throw, font change, line spacing

•   specialist devices with digital input and/or output

•   interpret a data stream for a device for which specifications are provided

•   generate a data stream to specify particular operations for a hardware device, for which specifications are provided

•   modify a stream of data to meet changed requirements, given the hardware specifications

•   cause a hardware device to respond in a specified fashion