How many bits are in a byte?

How many bits are in a byte?

• A. 4 bits
• B. 8 bits
• C. 16 bits
• D. 32 bits

Answer: (B)

A byte is eight bits. A bit is a 0 or 1, and grouping eight of those bits gives a byte, which can represent 256 distinct values (2^8). That size is the standard for encoding characters in most systems (ASCII uses 7 bits but is stored in a full byte). The other groupings correspond to different chunk sizes: four bits is a nibble, sixteen bits is two bytes, and thirty-two bits is four bytes. So eight bits per byte is the correct size.

A byte is eight bits. A bit is a 0 or 1, and grouping eight of those bits gives a byte, which can represent 256 distinct values (2^8). That size is the standard for encoding characters in most systems (ASCII uses 7 bits but is stored in a full byte). The other groupings correspond to different chunk sizes: four bits is a nibble, sixteen bits is two bytes, and thirty-two bits is four bytes. So eight bits per byte is the correct size.