Create a spreadsheet with the following columns:

Plaintext character

ASCII code (7-bits, binary number)

First bit

Second bit

Third bit

Fourth bit

Fifth bit

Sixth bit

Seventh bit

Number of bits with value = 1

Parity bit for odd parity coding

Parity bit for even parity coding

a. Enter the 26 letters a-z (lowercase) and the ten digits (0-9) in the plaintext column

b. The ASCII column should convert the plaintext character to the binary code used by your computer. 

c. The next seven columns should each display one bit of the ASCII code, beginning with the leftmost digit. (Hint: Excel provides text functions that can select individual characters from a string).

d. The tenth column should sum the number of bits that have the value ‘1’. (Hint: the text functions used to populate columns 3-9 return a text string that you will need to convert to a numeric value).

e. The eleventh column should have a 1 if the number in the tenth column is odd and 0 if the number in the tenth column is even.

f. The twelfth column should have a 1 if the number in the tenth column is even and a 0 if the number in the tenth column is odd.