From the course: Computer Science Principles: Digital Information

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Binary and bits

Binary and bits

From the course: Computer Science Principles: Digital Information

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Binary and bits

- We can represent the binary states of on and off as numbers. The binary number system is based on only two digits, one and zero. For a binary state of on, that's represented by a one. For a state of off, that's represented by a zero. But storing a single value doesn't make much sense on its own. You'd want to store multiple values in a row. To do that, you would create a string of them and since they're all numbers, you're just creating a larger number with multiple digits, or bits. A grouping of eight binary digits is called a byte, spelled with a Y. A byte is a common measure of data that we use every day. A kilobyte is 1,024 bytes. A megabyte is 1,024 kilobytes. A gigabyte is 1,024 megabytes. And a terabyte is 1,024 gigabytes. On a computer, you might have a drive that can store a terabyte of data. A terabyte can contain almost nine trillion bits. That's over nine trillion individual states of on or off. But what do we do with all these bits? Each of these bits holds an on or off…

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