The place values associated with the 0 bits are not added into the byte total.īecause a single byte supports only 256 unique characters, some character sets use multiple bytes per character. When added together, the place values associated with 1 bits total 83, which corresponds to the decimal value assigned to the ASCII uppercase "S" character. The "S" byte includes four 1 bits and four 0 bits. This figure shows the letter "S" byte and the corresponding place values. The various combinations of bit patterns provide a range of 0 to 255, which means that each byte can support up to 256 unique bit patterns.įor example, the uppercase "S" in the American Standard Code for Information Interchange ( ASCII) character set is assigned the decimal value of 83, which is equivalent to the binary value of 01010011. A single byte can support up to 256 unique characters, starting with the 00000000 byte and ending with the 11111111 byte. This total corresponds to a character in the applicable character set. To calculate this value, the place values associated with each 1 bit are added together. The place values are used in conjunction with the bit values to arrive at the byte's overall meaning. In other words, the byte values indicate what character is associated with that byte.Ī place value is assigned to each bit in a right-to-left pattern, starting with 1 and increasing the value by doubling it for each bit, as described in this table. A byte's place values are used to determine the meaning of the byte as a whole, based on the individual bits. How a bit worksĮach bit in a byte is assigned a specific value, which is referred to as the place value. That means a 1 TB drive can store 8 trillion bits of data. To bring this into perspective, 1 MB equals 1 million bytes, or 8 million bits. For example, a storage device might be able to store 1 terabyte ( TB) of data, which is equal to 1,000,000 megabytes ( MB). References to a computer's memory and storage are always in terms of bytes. A byte is a sequence of eight bits that are treated as a single unit. The charge determines the state of each bit, which, in turn, determines the bit's value.Īlthough a computer might be able to test and manipulate data at the bit level, most systems process and store data in bytes.
Bits are stored in memory through the use of capacitors that hold electrical charges. However, the state might also be represented by yes/no, on/off or true/false. The state is represented by a single binary value, usually a 0 or 1. A bit is always in one of two physical states, similar to an on/off light switch. A bit (binary digit) is the smallest unit of data that a computer can process and store.
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