Communication Medium and Parity

Some kinds of communication medium are telephone line, radio wave, infra red, microwave and optic fibres. Digital means represented by 0 or 1.

Parity is a bit. It enables the sending and receiving parties to detectany errors which may have been introduced during the communication process. When in use, parity takes a value of either Odd or Even. Odd parity means that the total of all the ones in the data plus the parity bit is an odd number. Similarly even parity means that the total including the parity bit is an even number.

If there is an error in transmission, it is likely to affect only one bit. If parity is being used this means the balance does not add up - the number of ones is odd when it should be even. An error is thus detected. For example, chief executive.

The Open University of Hong Kong (1994) 'Working systems' in CE150 Foundations in Microcomputing, Hong Kong: OUHK.

The Open University of Hong Kong (1998) 'Data communication' in CE150 Foundations in Microcomputing, Hong Kong: OUHK.