A machine has eight different cycles. How many bits are needed to represent each cycle?
I would like to know the explanation
What do you think the answer might be and why do you think that?
That looks a lot like a homework question, and we aren’t a homework question answering service here.
It is the question from a book. The book is " Forouzan, B. A., & Fegan, S. C. (2003). Introducción a la ciencia de la computación: de la manipulación de datos a la teoría de la computación . Thomson."
Well, I have no idea. I need to know what the process is for a cycle and then assign the bits to the steps, but I can’t find reference about the process of a cycle.
I’m not sure how a loop would come into this.
Lets rephrase the question. Forget about cycles.
I have a knob/dial/widget/whatchamacallit that can be set to one of 8 different values. How many bits do I need to represent the number of possible settings for this knob/dial/widget/whatchamacallit?
8 bits. No? a bit for each value
8 bits would be enough, but you can use fewer bits. Have you read about binary numbers?
Yes, one and zero. Wait, how to use less bits?
How many binary bits to you need to represent the number 6?
Uhmm… 110(2) so 3 bits.
Ok, and how many bits do you need to represent 8?
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ohh 1000(2) so 4 bits. And 8 cycles is how to say 8 anything. Thanks
I know I’m late to the party, but you can do better still than 4 bits. It’s true you need 4 bits to represent decimal 8, but you don’t need 4 bits to represent 8 distinct values. Counting from 0 (or any arbitrary point really) doesn’t change the number of items you count. It just changes their labels.
–jrm
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Good point. 0-7 is 8 different values.
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