(Image-1) Byte

A byte

• Is a group of eight consecutive bits (Image-1)
• The bits are counted from right to left starting at 0
• Is considered as being made of two nibbles (Image-2)

 The most right bit

• Is bit 0
• It is called the least significant bit
• It is also referred to as the Low Order bit, the LO bit, or LOBIT

The most left bit

• Is bit 7
• It is called the most significant bit
• It is also referred to as the High Order bit, the HI bit, or HIBIT

The other bits

• Are referred to following their positions

(Image-2)

The right nibble (Image-2)

• Made of the right 4 bits
• Is called the Low Order nibble or LO nibble

The left nibble (Image-2)

• made of the left 4 bits
• Is called the High Order nibble or HI nibble

Using the binary system

• you can represent the byte using a combination of 0s and 1s (B-1)

(B-1) When all bits have a value of 0

• The byte is represented as 00000000

(B-1) When all bits have a value of 1

• The byte is represented as 11111111

When the number grows very large

• It becomes difficult to read. Therefore, we will represent bits in groups of four (B-2)

(B-2) Instead of writing 00000000

• We will write it as  0000 0000

Create combinations of bits using the boxes as we did for the nibble

• 2⁸, which is 256.
• There are 256 possible combinations.

Another way to find it out is by using the base 2 technique:

• 2⁷ + 2⁶ + 2⁵ + 2⁴ + 2³ + 2² + 2¹ + 2⁰
  = 128 + 64 + 32 + 16 + 8 + 4 + 2 + 1
  = 255
• Therefore, the maximum decimal value you can store in a byte is 255

Remember that the byte with all bits having a value of 0

• Has its value set to 0
• Since this byte also holds a valid value, the number of combinations = 255 + 1 = 256

When a byte is completely represented with 0s

• It provides the minimum value it can hold
• This is 0000 0000, which is also 0

When all bits have a value of 1

• Which is 1111 1111, a byte holds its maximum value that we calculated as 255 in the decimal system
• As done with the nibble, we get the following table (Image-3):

(Image-3)

The minimum storage area offered by the (Intel) computer

• Is the byte

As you know already

• A byte is a group of 8 consecutive bits

The amount of memory space offered by a byte

• Can be used to store just a single symbol, such as those you see on your keyboard

These symbols, also called characters, have been organized

• The American Standard Code for Information Exchange (ASCII) in a set list
• But, ASCII uses only 128 decimal numbers (based on a 7-bit format) to represent symbols counted from 0 to 127
• To compensate for the remaining 1 bit, IBM used it to organize special characters, foreign language characters, mathematical symbols, small graphics, etc
• Each one of these characters has a decimal, a hexadecimal, and a binary equivalents

Each one of the characters you see on your keyboard

• Is represented as a numeric value, but whether it appears as a number, a letter, or a symbol, each one of these is considered a character

To display any character on your screen

• you can use the cout << operator and include the character between single-quotes, as (A-1)

Example of (A-1)

#include <iostream>
 
using namespace std;
 
int main()
{
 
     cout << 'a';
 
     return 0;
 
}