How to Understand Bits and Bytes on your Computer
-
Byte
-
The byte is a unit of digital information in computing and telecommunications that most commonly consists of eight bits.
Byte
The byte is a unit of digital information in computing and telecommunications that most commonly consists of eight bits.
Base-2 System and the 8-bit Byte
-
The reason computers use the base-2 system is because it makes it a lot easier to implement them with current electronic technology. You could wire up and build computers that operate in base-10, but they would be fiendishly expensive right now. On the other hand, base-2 computers are relatively cheap.
So computers use binary numbers, and therefore use binary digits in place of decimal digits. The word bitis a shortening of the words "Binary digIT." Whereas decimal digits have 10 possible values ranging from 0 to 9, bits have only two possible values: 0 and 1. Therefore, a binary number is composed of only 0s and 1s, like this: 1011. How do you figure out what the value of the binary number 1011 is? You do it in the same way we did it above for 6357, but you use a base of 2 instead of a base of 10. So:
(1 * 2^3) + (0 * 2^2) + (1 * 2^1) + (1 * 2^0) = 8 + 0 + 2 + 1 = 11
You can see that in binary numbers, each bit holds the value of increasing powers of 2. That makes counting in binary pretty easy. Starting at zero and going through 20, counting in decimal and binary looks like this:
0 = 0
1 = 1
2 = 10
3 = 11
4 = 100
5 = 101
6 = 110
7 = 111
8 = 1000
9 = 1001
10 = 1010
11 = 1011
12 = 1100
13 = 1101
14 = 1110
15 = 1111
16 = 10000
17 = 10001
18 = 10010
19 = 10011
20 = 10100
Bits are rarely seen alone in computers. They are almost always bundled together into 8-bit collections, and these collections are called bytes. Why are there 8 bits in a byte? A similar question is, "Why are there 12 eggs in a dozen?" The 8-bit byte is something that people settled on through trial and error over the past 50 years.
With 8 bits in a byte, you can represent 256 values ranging from 0 to 255, as shown here:
0 = 00000000
1 = 00000001
2 = 00000010
...
254 = 11111110
255 = 11111111
The reason computers use the base-2 system is because it makes it a lot easier to implement them with current electronic technology. You could wire up and build computers that operate in base-10, but they would be fiendishly expensive right now. On the other hand, base-2 computers are relatively cheap.
So computers use binary numbers, and therefore use binary digits in place of decimal digits. The word bitis a shortening of the words "Binary digIT." Whereas decimal digits have 10 possible values ranging from 0 to 9, bits have only two possible values: 0 and 1. Therefore, a binary number is composed of only 0s and 1s, like this: 1011. How do you figure out what the value of the binary number 1011 is? You do it in the same way we did it above for 6357, but you use a base of 2 instead of a base of 10. So:
(1 * 2^3) + (0 * 2^2) + (1 * 2^1) + (1 * 2^0) = 8 + 0 + 2 + 1 = 11
You can see that in binary numbers, each bit holds the value of increasing powers of 2. That makes counting in binary pretty easy. Starting at zero and going through 20, counting in decimal and binary looks like this:
0 = 0
1 = 1
2 = 10
3 = 11
4 = 100
5 = 101
6 = 110
7 = 111
8 = 1000
9 = 1001
10 = 1010
11 = 1011
12 = 1100
13 = 1101
14 = 1110
15 = 1111
16 = 10000
17 = 10001
18 = 10010
19 = 10011
20 = 10100
Bits are rarely seen alone in computers. They are almost always bundled together into 8-bit collections, and these collections are called bytes. Why are there 8 bits in a byte? A similar question is, "Why are there 12 eggs in a dozen?" The 8-bit byte is something that people settled on through trial and error over the past 50 years.With 8 bits in a byte, you can represent 256 values ranging from 0 to 255, as shown here:0 = 00000000 1 = 00000001 2 = 00000010 ... 254 = 11111110 255 = 11111111
When you start talking about lots of bytes, you get into prefixes like kilo, mega and giga, as in kilobyte, megabyte and gigabyte (also shortened to K, M and G, as in Kbytes, Mbytes and Gbytes or KB, MB and GB). The following table shows the binary multipliers:
Kilo (K)
2^10 = 1,024
Mega (M)
2^20 = 1,048,576
Giga (G)
2^30 = 1,073,741,824
Tera (T)
2^40 = 1,099,511,627,776
Peta (P)
2^50 = 1,125,899,906,842,624
Exa (E)
2^60 = 1,152,921,504,606,846,976
Zetta (Z)
2^70 = 1,180,591,620,717,411,303,424
Yotta (Y)
2^80 = 1,208,925,819,614,629,174,706,176
1 Bit = Binary Digit
4 bits = 1 Nibble
8 Bits = 1 Byte
1024 Bytes = 1 Kilobyte
1024 Kilobytes = 1 Megabyte
1024 Megabytes = 1 Gigabyte
1024 Gigabytes = 1 Terabyte
1024 Terabytes = 1 Petabyte
1024 Petabytes = 1 Exabyte
1024 Exabytes = 1 Zettabyte
1024 Zettabytes = 1 Yottabyte
1024Yottabytes = 1 Brontobyte
1024 Brontobytes = 1 Geopbyte
1024 Geopbyte=1 Saganbyte
1024 Saganbyte=1 Pijabyte
Alphabyte = 1024 Pijabyte
Kryatbyte = 1024 Alphabyte
Amosbyte = 1024 Kryatbyte
Pectrolbyte = 1024 Amosbyte
Bolgerbyte = 1024 Pectrolbyte
Sambobyte = 1024 Bolgerbyte
Quesabyte = 1024 Sambobyte
Kinsabyte = 1024 Quesabyte
Rutherbyte = 1024 Kinsabyte
Dubnibyte = 1024 Rutherbyte
Seaborgbyte = 1024 Dubnibyte
Bohrbyte = 1024 Seaborgbyte
Hassiubyte = 1024 Bohrbyte
Meitnerbyte = 1024 Hassiubyte
Darmstadbyte = 1024 Meitnerbyte
Roentbyte = 1024 Darmstadbyte
Coperbyte = 1024 Roentbyte
