Click here to Skip to main content
15,867,308 members
Please Sign up or sign in to vote.
0.00/5 (No votes)
See more:
Hey guys,

Can someone please explain to me how does an electric signal goes from analog to some form of data that can be read in the computer. Let's say you are recording the electrical activity of the heart and you want to show a graph on a software showing the variation, what are the actions that are performed "behind the scenes"?

Regards,

BTW this is just for my personal knowledge!
Posted

All you ever wanted to know (and maybe some you didn't know you wanted to know) is right here.[^]
 
Share this answer
 
Comments
Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 2-May-12 20:49pm    
Fair enough, my 5.
I provided more specific answer, please see. :-)
--SA
This is the very basic explanation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog-to-digital_converter[^].

What happens from ADC to computer may vary. ADC can be a PCI card, it can be a part of stand-along device connected with one of the very many interfaces: Ethernet, serial port (such as RS-232), CompactPCI, USB and a lot more.

—SA
 
Share this answer
 
Comments
Dr.Walt Fair, PE 2-May-12 20:52pm    
The first non-advertisement link in my results!
Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 2-May-12 21:01pm    
Who would doubt your results are very good? :-)
Thank you, Walt.
--SA
Andy411 3-May-12 2:05am    
My 5
It remembers me, that you could use the gameport as a build-in ADC in the "old days"
Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 8-May-12 12:51pm    
Thank you, Andy.
--SA

This content, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)



CodeProject, 20 Bay Street, 11th Floor Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5J 2N8 +1 (416) 849-8900