1 BYTE = 8 bits

andenagaveni24
Member • Aug 15, 2011

1 BYTE = 8 bits

friends two days ago i attended a mock interview....everything was well i answered most of the questions asked by the technical panel.
he asked me to prove
1 byte = 8 bits
i couldnot do that?
plz you too try dis...how can we prove this....

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andenagaveni24

Member • Aug 15, 2011

friends two days ago i attended a mock interview....everything was well i answered most of the questions asked by the technical panel.<br>he asked me to prove

1 byte = 8 bits

i couldnt do it

plz you too try dis...how can we prove this....

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Kaustubh Katdare

Administrator • Aug 15, 2011

There's nothing to prove. It's like asking to prove 1KG = 1000 grams. The bit, byte system has been adopted because this system can represent unsigned integer from zero through 255 or any signed integer from -128 to 127. The relation 1 <=> 8 is offered because the semiconductors store data in terms of positive (1) and neutral (0) voltages which leads us to using binary system. 2[SUP]3[/SUP] = 8.

CS experts - am I right?

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Kishan Gupta

Member • Aug 15, 2011

The_Big_K
There's nothing to prove. It's like asking to prove 1KG = 1000 grams. The bit, byte system has been adopted because this system can represent unsigned integer from zero through 255 or any signed integer from -128 to 127. The relation 1 <=> 8 is offered because the semiconductors store data in terms of positive (1) and neutral (0) voltages which leads us to using binary system. 2[SUP]3[/SUP] = 8.

CS experts - am I right?
still i am confuse why 1<=> 8 relation is made, why not 1<=> 4 (2^2 =4) or 1 <=> 16 (2^4 = 16)?

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Kaustubh Katdare

Administrator • Aug 15, 2011
jcksn
still i am confuse why 1<=> 8 relation is made, why not 1<=> 4 (2^2 =4) or 1 <=> 16 (2^4 = 16)?
I'm glad that you asked this question. This could be a very good Interview question. The explanation of this can be found on this page: #-Link-Snipped-#

Quoting from above source -
[SIZE=+2]Bytes[/SIZE]
Bits are rarely seen alone in computers. They are almost always bundled together into 8-bit collections, and these collections are called bytes. Why are there 8 bits in a byte? A similar question is, "Why are there 12 eggs in a dozen?" The 8-bit byte is something that people settled on through trial and error over the past 50 years.

With 8 bits in a byte, you can represent 256 values ranging from 0 to 255, as shown here:
- 0 = 00000000
  1 = 00000001
  2 = 00000010
  ...
  254 = 11111110
  255 = 11111111
Go through the link I mentioned above for details 😀
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Kishan Gupta

Member • Aug 15, 2011

Thank you BIG_K for your reply.

After reading provided page by you, I understand that, computer uses ASCII values for storing data, and ASCII values needed maximum 256 means 2^8 values. So we started to use 1 <=>8 relation. Am I understand correctly?

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Kishan Gupta

Member • Aug 15, 2011

I am also go through this page

#-Link-Snipped-#

In that reason for 1B=8b is given that

Why eight? The earliest computers could only send 8 bits at a time, it was only natural to start writing code in sets of 8 bits. This came to be called a byte.

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gobi15

Member • Aug 16, 2011

ok i understand .in computer it represent a character from any one of 127 ASCII number , so why we go for 8 bit instead of 7 bit ... because 2^7=128 ....128 ascii numbers is there ..7 bit suffient then why go for 8 bit ...pls reply ....

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Kishan Gupta

Member • Aug 17, 2011

I am not sure, but there are many other symbols too (other language then English symbol, some special symbol or keys, etc), that can be represent after 127 symbols. Also we need +, - signs to add in numerical, and that can be represent by 8th bit, and by using this we can represent from -128 to 127 decimal number.

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Arjuno

Member • Sep 9, 2011

what i knew:
1 Byte = 4 nibbles = 8 bits

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Kishan Gupta

Member • Sep 9, 2011

Arjuno
what i knew:
1 Byte = 4 nibbles = 8 bits
what I knew:

1 Byte= 2 nibbles = 8 bits.

Because 1 nibbles = 4 bits.

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