1a. What is the minimum number of bits that are required to uniquely represent the characters of English alphabet? (Consider upper case characters alone)

The number of unique bit patterns using i bits is 2ⁱ We need at least 26 unique bit patterns. The cleanest approach is to compute log₂ 26 and take the ceiling .This yields 5 as the answer. Trial and error is also an acceptable solution.

1b. how many more characters can be uniquely represented without requiring additional bits?

With 5 bits, we can represent up to 32 (2⁵) unique bit patterns; we can represent

32 - 26 = 6 more characters without requiring additional bits.

2 Using 7 bits to represent each number, write the representations of 23 and -23 in signed

Magnitude and 2's complement integers.