Going Digital with Compact Discs

The recording industry has gone digital. To create a master CD, analog signals are converted to digital signals that can be manipulated by a computer and written to a master CD. The master is duplicated and the copies are sold through retail channels.
• In CDs and CD-ROMs, digital data are stored permanently as microscopic pits.
• In fiber optic cable, binary data flows through as pulses of light.
Bits may be fine for computers, but human beings are more comfortable with letters and decimal numbers (the base-10 numerals 0 through 9). We like to see colors and hear sounds. Therefore, the letters, decimal numbers, colors, and sounds that we input into a computer system while doing word processing, graphics, and other applications must be translated into Is and Os for processing and storage. The computer translates the bits back into letters, decimal numbers, colors, and sounds for output on monitors, printers, speakers, and so on.