How to Understand Bits and Bytes on your Computer

How to Understand Bits and Bytes on your  Computer 

1. Byte

   Unit of data
2. 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

1. 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

2. 
   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

Bits are binary digits. A bit can hold the value 0 or 1.

Bytes are made up of 8 bits each.

Binary math works just like decimal math, but each bit can have a value of only 0 or 1.

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