Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department of Mechanical Engineering 6.050J/2.110J – Information, Entropy and Computation – Spring 2010

Unit 3: Compression

Schedule

Lecture Handouts

Students who for any reason did not receive these items can pick them up in Room 38-344. Most of this material is also available on the 6.050J/2.110J Web site http://mtlsites.mit.edu/Courses/6.050.

• Unit 3 Resources (this page)
• 6.050J/2.110J Notes
  • Chapter 3: Compression
  • MP3 demonstration
• Shutter Telegraph Codewords
• Graphics Interchange Format (GIF87) Specification (complete, 13 pp.)
• GIF Patent Controversy
  • Unisys statement, LZW Patent Information (no longer on Unisys Web site)
  • Unisys statement, LZW Software and Patent Information (no longer on Unisys Web site)
  • Statement by League for Programming Freedom
• Six-page excerpt from JPEG FAQ
• MP3 overview from Fraunhofer Institute, 3 pp.

Reading Assignment

• Notes, Chapter 3: Compression

Resources

Technical

• Flag of Germany, the perfect example for run-length encoding . . . .
  (flag courtesy ITA's Flags of All Countries, used with permission)
• JPEG FAQ, http://www.faqs.org/faqs/jpeg-faq/part1 (Part 1) and Part 2
• LZW and GIF explained . . another site
• LZW description with example
• PNG, an alternative to GIF

Historical

• Geoffrey Wilson, "The Old Telegraphs," Phillimore and Co., Ltd., London and Chichester, U.K.; 1976. Describes several telegraph systems, in many countries, that predate electrical telegraphs
• Gerard J. Holzmann and Björn Pehrson, "The Early History of Data Networks," John Wiley and Sons, Inc.; 1994
• Gerard J. Holzmann and Björn Pehrson, "The First Data Networks," Scientific American, vol. 270, no. 1, pp. 124-129; January, 1994. Describes French and Swedish optical telegraphs, from the 1790s
• Tom Standage, "The Victorian Internet," Berkley Books; 1998; Chapter 1
• Unisys/Compuserve GIF Controversy
  • Statement from League for Programming Freedom
  • More general Software Patents Statement by LPF
  • Historical summary, relatively dispassionate

Help Wanted

6.050J/2.110J students: be the first to suggest a resource, for example a useful Web site or a good book or article, to add to the list above. Send your suggestion by e-mail during Spring 2010 to 6.050-staff at mit.edu.