How does it all work???

B

Botnaim

New Member
I have two questions. The first is directly connected to this forum topic the second is abit less.

Okay, memory, how does it work??
Lets take a CD. If I'm not mistaken 0's and 1's are represented as bumps that the optical laser reads. Okay.
Now, I understand the concept of the ASCII table representing letters and basic symbols..
But when I burn a video file, audio file, computer game - what is it? how is it saved in memory? is there any indication what kind of file is it? If so how?

How does harddisk work? how is it remembering things and distinguses between different data?
-

More bizarre question : lets take a certain programming language.
What is the different between an array and an abstracted tree?
I mean I can implement an abstracted tree by an array, linked list or whatever so obviously they are different objects in a different level
but I can't put the fine line between them.
abstract tree used to represent data ordering and
linked list and array used to represent memory allocation?
or how is it exactly?

Thanks in advance to everyone!!
 
a HDD works by reversing\inversing VERY tiny magnets which can be distinguished in 2 ways, 1 and 0 as read by the read\write header.

a video works the exact same way as ASCII code, expect with a different pattern of 1 and 0's, which when but together in a string of 32/64 bits (depending on what kind of OS your running\with 64 bit cpu support) represent a command to the CPU. which then CPU than processes and than sends out the necessary commands to other hardware (video card\sound card\etc).
 
the table code for video file is global
or saved as part of the video file itself?
if so how does the CPU disitngush between the data, and the data encoding table?
 
im not 100% sure what your asking but....

the encoder (codec) or "table code" is saved as a file on your computer, but your CPU can access it in order to decode (decompress) the video, and than execute the commands that it has decoded, which basically draws stuff on the screen.

the media player actually loads up the correct codec, there is probably a line of code that indicates which one in the beginning of the video.
 
I actually know about this site, but it isn't clear enough.
Perhaps I'm not searching for the right keyword?
How can I understand encoding data, and how it is saved in memory?
For example I searched 'divx' to see an example at howstuffworks but there is nothing on it.

Thanks for all you guys trying to help.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top