BYTE, WORD […..]

The bit represents the unit of definition of a logic state, also defined as the elementary unit of information processed by a computer. The logical representation of the bit is represented only by the values {0, 1}. For programming purposes it is common to group sequences of bits into larger entities that can take values in much wider intervals than that allowed by a single bit. These groupings generally contain a number of binary strings equal to a binary power, ie equal to 2n; the best known is the byte (also called octet), corresponding to 8 bits, which is the unit of measurement most used in the IT field.

sistema binario

sistema binario

We have said that in the binary system it is possible to represent numbers, characters, images, sounds, videos. As for the representation of images, videos and sounds, the discussion is beyond the scope of these posts. If you want to learn more about the subject, I will leave you some links on the matter. The 0 and 1 are not to be confused with the zero and one of the decimal system. They represent a logical state, true or false, on or off, when I talk to you about digital electronics these concepts will be clearer to you. Now let’s see what are the most used binary quantities in computers.

  • NIBBLE 4-bit sequence

  • BYTE 8-bit sequence

  1. LSB (Least significant bit)
  2. MSB (Most significant bit)

  • WORD is a sequence of 16 bit (2 byte)

  • DOUBLE WORD is a sequence of 32 bit (4 byte)

  • QUAD WORD is a sequence of 64 bit (8 byte)

We said that with n bits we can represent 2n different combinations, with 1 byte 28 = 256 from 0 to 255 information, with 2 byte 216 possible combinations that is 65536 and so on.

BINARY QUANTITIES – LINKS TO PREVIOUS POST

GRANDEZZE BINARIE – CALCOLATRICE ONLINE

I MULTIPLI DEL BIT

Multipli del bit

VIDEO DI APPROFONDIMENTO