Digital Data Processing in Software Engineering
How does it all work? The digital data processor (Fig. 1.4) is constantly being bombarded with digital values, one following the other at regular intervals. Its job is to output a suitable digital number in response to each digital input. This is something of an achievement as all that the processor has to work with is the current input value and the previous input and output samples. Somehow it has to use these to generate the output value corresponding to the current input value.
The mechanics of what happens is surprisingly simple. First, a number of the previous input and/or output values are stored in special data storage registers, the number stored depending on the nature of the signal processing to be done. Weighted versions of these stored values are then added to (or subtracted from) the current input sample to generate the corresponding output value – the actual algorithm obviously depending on the type of signal processing required. It is this processing algorithm which is at the heart of the whole system – arriving at this can be a very complicated business! This is something we will examine in detail in later chapters. Here we will look at some fairly simple examples of processing, just to get a feel for what is involved.
Category: Software Engineering
