====== ENCODING INFORMATION ======
Information is all around us, be it sensor data, records kept by governments, or transactions made by banks. Devices need to be able to send and receive information, and most often they have to persist the information and store it on a disk, or any other storage medium.


==== ENCODING SCHEME ====
An encoder takes as input information in some form and outputs the information encoded into the storage medium according to the encoding scheme.

The encoding scheme is as follows. 


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==== COMPUTERS====
For devices, systems or programs to communicate and store information, information has to be encoded in such a manner that it can be handled mechanically. For contemporary computer systems the universal encoding unit is the bit. The bit, or binary digit, can be represented on the level of hardware.

A bit is either a 1 or a 0. Mechanically and electronically this can be seen as on and off. Or, up and down.

Classic computers that were built using mechnical components, such as solenoid switches and vacuum tubes, had bits represented using those components. A solenoid switch can 'store' a bit by remaining on or off, the same principle applies for a vacuum tube.



==== Structured data ====