How would you go about coding this in Matlab?

You want to transmit the word HOW using an 8-ary system. (a) Encode the word "HOW" into a sequence of bits, using 7-bit ASCII coding, followed by an eighth bit for error detection, per character. The eighth bit is chosen so that the number of ones in the 8 bits is an even number. How many total bits are there in the message? (b) Partition the bit stream into k = 3 bit segments. Represent each of the 3-bit segments as an octal number (symbol). How many octal symbols are there in the message? (c) If the system were designed with 16-ary modulation, how many symbols would be used to represent the word "HOW"? (d) If the system were designed with 256-ary modulation, how many symbols would be used to represent the word "HOW