Byte

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The byte is an unit used to measure computer file sizes and data sizes. Just like grams measure weights and meters measure distances, bytes measure data. A single byte is equivalent to 8 bits. A single byte can contain enough data to represent a binary number from 0000000 to 1111111, which is equivalent to a decimal number from 0 to 255, or from -128 to 127 if you treat a bit as a sign flag, or a single text character (letter, number, punctuation, space, etc.) under ASCII text encoding. Because a single byte has 256, or 162 possible values, it's sometimes represented by 2 hexadecimal digits (e.g. 00, 0F, A0, FF, etc.). With 3 bytes, you can represent a single RGB color (00FF00 would be green). With 4 bytes, a RGBA color.

The RAM memory of a computer is typically byte-addressable, which means there's an unique address for each byte in the memory. A 32-bit processor uses 32 bits (or 4 bytes) to address the memory. For example, BAADF00D could be a 4-byte memory address. With 4 bytes, you can represent a decimal number from 0 to 4294967295 (232 possible values). Consequently, a 32 bit processor would only be able address and thus use up to 4 gibibytes of RAM (around 4 gigabytes). In a 64 bit processor, the same sort of limitation exist, but now a single address is 8 bytes long, which means we can have 264 memory addresses, and that's enough addresses to address 16 exbibytes worth of RAM (around 18 exabytes).

Written by Noel Santos.

About the Author

I'm a self-taught Brazilian programmer graduated in IT from a FATEC. In a world of increasingly complex and essential computers, I decided to use my technical expertise in hardware, desktop applications, and web technologies to create an informative resource to make PC's easier to understand.

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