When we have a human task, such as communicating remotely, that we wish to implement

in a computer system, we need to have a system for moving something from meat space into

cyber space. We encode characters into different formats which are discussed in lecture.

These formats include ASCII, Unicode, and EBCDIC. These encodings encode characters

that are used in human language and we are able to type them when we use a piece of

hardware like a keyboard or when we swipe on a touch screen.

Planet Earth has used codes like ASCII, Unicode, and EBCIDIC, but those are not the

only possible codes. The Taronites from the planet Oolong use a language called Bobatea,

with a rather strange encoding system, at least from the perspective of those on Planet

Earth. Earthlings have been intercepting Taronite messages $-$ including one that was like

the Rosetta Stone of old $-$ and have determined that there are thirteen characters in the

Taronite alphabet, and that each character uses a $5-$bit code. In addition, there are four

numeric digits. Photos of the Taronites show that they have two fingers on each hand and

use base $4$ for their arithmetic.