Application of Gray Code

Because of many shortcomings in addition of the BCD code, excess 3 code is used
and grey code is used in the shaft position of the airplanes.
These codes are precisely used in electro optical switches and electrochemical
signals.
The Grey code arises in many real life situations. In the beginning, the main use of
the code was related to what we now call as the conversion from analog to digital
format. The basic aim was to convert a voltage value which was previously in
analog to the corresponding series of pulse which will represent the same value in
digital form. This technique was to convert voltage by displacing vertically an
electron beam that sweeps horizontally across the screen of the cathode ray tube.
The screen having a masked imprint on it only allows a passage of beam in certain
places, and a current was generated till the beam was passing through the mask.
The passage of the beam gives rise to a series of on and off conditions
corresponding to the pattern of the holes through which it passes.
The most common use of this code is locating for rotational position of the shafts I
which a pattern which represents the grey code is printed on a disk, or on the shaft,
and the pattern is sensed by an electrical or optical detector.

Application of Excess-3
Because of many shortcomings in addition of the BCD code, excess 3 code is used
and grey code is used in the shaft position of the airplanes.
These codes are precisely used in electro optical switches and electrochemical
signals.The Gray code arises in many real life situations. In the beginning, the main
use of the code was related to what we now call as the conversion from analog to
digital format. The basic aim was to convert a voltage value which was previously in
analog to the corresponding series of pulse which will represent the same value in
digital form. This technique was to convert voltage by displacing vertically an
electron beam that sweeps horizontally across the screen of the cathode ray tube.
The screen having a masked imprint on it only allows a passage of beam in certain
places, and a current was generated till the beam was passing through the mask.
The passage of the beam gives rise to a series of on and off conditions
corresponding to the pattern of the holes through which it passes.The most
common use of Gray code is locating for rotational position of the shafts I which a
pattern which represents the grey code is printed on a disk, or on the shaft, and the
pattern is sensed by an electrical or optical detector.Gray Code was used in some
old computers that relied on a pre-specified number N as a biasing value.The excess
3 code is a technique to represent numbers with a balance of positive and negative
numbers. When the sum of two of these excess 3 numbers exceed 9, the carry bit of
adder will set to high. When you add two excess 3 numbers, the resultant would not
be an excess 3 number, example : add 1 to 3 , the answer would seem to be 7 but
the actual answer should be 4, so a remedy of this problem is to subtract 3 (binary
011) if the resultant is less than decimal 10 and add 3 if the number is equal to or
greater than 10.This needs to be done due to the fact that whenever we add two

numbers, an excess value of six results in the sum. But we now that the values 0 to
15 are four bit integer and any excess to that means the sum will overflow.

Excess-3 binary-coded decimal (XS-3) or Stibitz code, also called biased representation or
Excess-N, is a complementary BCD code and numeral system. Excess-3 was used on some older
computers as well as in cash registers and hand held portable electronic calculators of the 1970's,
among other uses. It is a way to represent values with a balanced number of positive and
negative numbers using a pre-specified number N as a biasing value. It is a nonweighted code. In
XS-3, numbers are represented as decimal digits, and each digit is represented by four bits as the
digit value plus 3 (the "excess" amount):

The smallest binary number represents the smallest value. (i.e. 0 Excess
Value)

The greatest binary number represents the largest value. (i.e. 2 N+1 Excess
Value 1)

Decimal Excess-3 Decimal Excess-3 Decimal Excess-3 Decimal Excess-3

3

0000

0100

1000

1100

0001

0101

1001

10

1101

0010

0110

1010

11

1110

0011

0111

1011

12

1111

To encode a number such as 127, then, one simply encodes each of the decimal digits as above,
giving (0100, 0101, 1010).
The primary advantage of XS-3 coding over non-biased coding is that a decimal number can be
nines' complemented (for subtraction) as easily as a binary number can be ones' complemented;
just invert all bits. In addition, when the sum of two XS-3 digits is greater than 9, the carry bit of
a four bit adder will be set high. This works because, when adding two numbers that are greater
or equal to zero, an "excess" value of six results in the sum. Since a four bit integer can only hold
values 0 to 15, an excess of six means that any sum over nine will overflow.
Adding Excess-3 works on a different algorithm than non-biased decimal coding or regular
binary positional system numbers. When you add two XS-3 numbers together, the result is not an
XS-3 number. For instance, when you add 1 and 0 in XS-3 the answer seems to be 4 instead of 1.
In order to correct this problem, when you are finished adding each digit, you have to remove the
extra bias by subtracting binary 0011 (decimal 3 in unbiased binary) if the resulting digit is less
than decimal 10 and subtracting binary 1101 (decimal 13 in unbiased binary), if an overflow has

occurred. Note that, in 4-bit binary, subtracting binary 1101 is equivalent to adding 0011 and
vice-versa.