Hi,
I am currently studying computer networks and I have been reading about how data is transmitted via copper wires and fiber optics.
I understand the very basics of computers, data, logic gates and binary code.
However, currently I am struggling to wrap my head around how data can be transmitted by copper/light? It just does not make sense to me!
Can someone shed light on this?
In: Technology
think of morse code, replace the tone you are now imagining with a flash of light or a voltage being high or low, make machines that create the dots/dashes and machines that decode them back to the original data then connect one of each type of machine to the other type of machine with fiber or copper, connect 1/2 of each pair to a computer.
substitute morse code with binary and this is effectively a serial connection.
shrink the machines on either end as much as possible and add a way to share a single connection for bi-directional traffic through an agreed upon signal or time slice to switch directions on and you have the basis for many other kinds of connections.
at the protocol level it gets a bit more complicated but if there is a separate signal or a clock to indicate which ones and zeroes go together you then have a way to get back to bytes. and everything in a computer is encoded to or from bytes anyway.
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