Byte, word, bit, bit

Bit

From English bit, transliterated as "bit", which means binary bit. Bit is the smallest unit of data storage in the computer, 11010100 is an 8-bit binary number. One binary bit can only represent the two states of 0 and 1 (21); two binary bits can represent the four states of 00, 01, 10, 11 (22); three binary numbers can represent eight states (23)... .

The smallest storage unit is called a bit: it
can only hold one of two values ​​(0 or 1), and no more information can be stored in a bit. Bit is the basic unit of computer storage.

Byte

The byte comes from the English Byte, which is transliterated as "byt", and is usually represented by a capital "B".

Byte is the basic unit of data processing in a computer.
The computer stores and interprets information in bytes. It is stipulated that a byte is composed of eight binary bits, that is, 1 byte is equal to 8 bits (1Byte=8bit).
The minimum 8-bit binary number is 00000000 and the maximum is 11111111; usually 1 byte can store an ASCII code, and 2 bytes can store a Chinese character national standard code.

Byte (byte) is a commonly used computer storage unit.
The standard definition of byte: a byte is 8 bits.
Since each bit mentioned above is either 0 or 1, an 8-bit byte contains 256 possible combinations of 0 and 1

Word

When the computer processes data, the length of data that is accessed, processed and transmitted at one time is called a word. A word usually consists of one or more (usually an integer number of bytes) bytes.

For example:
The word of the 286 microcomputer is composed of 2 bytes, and its word length is 16; the word of the
486 microcomputer is composed of 4 bytes, and its word length is a 32-bit machine.

For a given computer design, words are the natural storage unit.
An English character and English punctuation occupies one byte, and a Chinese character and Chinese punctuation occupies 2 bytes

The word length of a computer determines the actual number of bits processed by its CPU in one operation. It can be seen that the larger the word length of the computer, the better its performance.

Another way of saying:

word

In a computer, a string of numbers that is processed or calculated as a whole is called a computer word, abbreviated as yu.
A word is usually divided into several bytes (each byte is generally 8 bits). In memory, usually each cell stores a word, so each word is addressable. The length of the word is expressed in digits.

In the arithmetic unit and controller of the computer, the transmission is usually carried out in units of words. The meaning of Yu appearing at the address without asking is not the same. For example, the word sent to the controller is an instruction, and the word sent to the arithmetic unit is a number.

The binary number string that is accessed, transmitted, and processed as a whole in the computer is called a word or unit, and the length of the binary digits in each word is called the word length. A word consists of several bytes. Different computer systems have different word lengths. Common ones are 8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit, 64-bit, etc. The longer the word length, the more information bits the computer can process at one time. , The higher the accuracy, the word length is an important indicator of computer performance.

Pay attention to the difference between word and word length. A word is a unit, and a word length is an indicator. The indicator needs to be measured by a unit. Just like the relationship between weight and kilograms in life, kilograms are the unit, weight is the index, and weight needs to be measured in kilograms.

Word length

The number of bits contained in each word of the computer is called the word length. Depending on the computer, there are two types of word length: fixed and variable. Fixed word length, that is, the word length is fixed no matter what the situation; variable word length, within a certain range, its length is variable.

The calculated word length refers to the number of binary creation numbers that it can process at one time. The rate at which a computer processes data is naturally related to the number of bits it can process at a time and the speed of operations. If the word length of one computer is twice that of the other computer, even if the speed of the two computers is the same, in the same time, the former can do twice as much work as the latter.

Generally, the word length of a large computer is 32-64 bits, a small computer is 12-32 bits, and a microcomputer is 4-16 bits. Word length is an important factor in measuring computer performance.

byte

Byte refers to a group of adjacent binary numbers. It is usually 8 bits as a byte. It is a small unit that constitutes information and participates in operations as a whole. It is smaller than a word and is a unit that constitutes a word.
In a microcomputer, how many bytes are usually used to express the storage capacity of the memory.

Block

In information processing, a group of words processed as a unit is called "word block". Also called "word group".

For example, a group of characters stored on a track of Zigu is called a character block. On magnetic tapes, there is usually an inter-block every 120 characters, which is also called a block. Generally, leave a space of 1.27-2.54 cm (1/2 to 1 inch) between blocks. In mass storage, information is stored in units of blocks, so only blocks are addressable. At present, the concept of "block" is also introduced in the high-speed Suichong technology.

In addition:
bit is "bit", there is another kind of call called "bit".
Byte, word, bit, bit, the relationship between these four is:
1 bit = 1 bit
1 word = 2 bytes
1 byte = 8 bits
1 word = 16 bits

Expand content

In the binary number system, each 0 or 1 is a bit, and a bit is the smallest unit of data storage.
Among them, 8bit is called a byte (Byte). The number of CPU bits in a computer refers to the maximum number of bits that the CPU can process at a time. For example, the CPU of a 32-bit computer can process up to 32 bits of data at a time.

Bit, short for Binary digit, is a term proposed by mathematician John Wilder Tukey (probably it was proposed in 1946, but some sources say it was proposed in 1943). The term was first officially used in Shannon's famous "Information Theory", that is, "A Mathematical Theory of Communication" (A Mathematical Theory of Communication) on page 1 of the paper.

Finally:
bit is equivalent to bit, which is the same unit.
Bit (the smallest unit) bit
1 word (word) = 2 bytes (byte)
1 byte (byte) = 8 bits (bit)

Expansion information

1. Bit is the abbreviation of English binary digit. A bit is the smallest unit of information. It is the information contained in one bit of a binary number or the amount of information required to specify one of the two options. Generally speaking, the amount of information of n bits can show 2 n-th power options.
2. Byte (Byte) is a unit of measurement used by computer information technology to measure storage capacity. Usually, a byte is equal to eight bits, which also represents data types and language characters in some computer programming languages.