![]() In terms of a conversion for human use, consider what eight bits can represent. If you look at MIME types for anything, you will probably note its use in the type application/octet-stream which basically tells the communication system to transfer the data stream without any modification during transit. This is a term often used in standards and also in communications and networking settings where the number of bits that represents a given single piece of information might differ from eight. In some circumstances instead of byte you might see the word octet. (You might also see nybble but since there is no other term to confuse nibble with, it is the spelling generally used.) This, as you might have guessed, led to the term nibble for these four-bit sequences. To take the analogy of eating a step further, some early computers worked in sequences of four bits instead of eight for some operations. Couple that with early computer scientists feeling the need to construct their own terminology and the possible confusion between bit and bite and you end up with the spelling: byte. The word byte is pronounced like the word “bite” and is thought to have come from a byte being the smallest amount of data a computer could bite at one time. ![]() The short form of a byte is an upper-case B. There are other, less common meanings for a byte but for this discussion the eight bit sequence is a good one and will be used throughout. ![]() In general use, a byte is taken to mean a contiguous sequence of eight bits. That’s where bytes and other bit collections come in… ByteĪ byte is a common unit for groupings of bits. So, humans need some organization to the bits in order to interact with the computer. To be certain your meaning is understood, you should probably use the full word bit as, in general use, sometimes people will improperly use the lower case b for byte.Īs interesting as a bit may be, humans really can’t think in terms of bits. The short form of a bit is a lower-case b. Think of a bit like a light switch it’s either on or it’s off. The term bit is a shorted form of binary digit and the bit can have only one of two values: 0 or 1. The most basic piece of information that a computer understands is a bit. With that caveat in mind let’s start at the beginning. CKnow can’t control people’s use of those terms however and ignorance of the true meanings has sometimes crept into common use. This page attempts to at least explain what the various terms actually mean. The various terms used for digital measurements can be confusing.
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