Measuring Memory

Information is stored in the form of bytes.  A byte is a unit of memory in a computer and this byte represents either a character e.g. B or two digits e.g. 12.  These bytes are formed from bits.  Bits, or Binary Digits, may have one of two values.  These are represented by 0 or 1, true or false, but will actually be the presence or absence of magnetisation.

Relationship between Bits, Bytes, Kilobytes, Megabytes and Gigabytes

A Bit is the smallest element of data storage.  Bits grouped together form bytes.  With the ASCII code a combination of 8 bits form 1 byte.  For example when you type a letter ‘a’ the computer will understand that as a combination of zeros and ones e.g. 01100001.  The following indicates the relationship between different data units

8 bits = 1 byte

1024 (2¹⁰) bytes = 1 Kilobyte

1 048 576 (2²⁰) bytes = 1024 Kilobytes = 1 Megabyte

1 073 741 824 bytes = 1024 Megabytes = 1 Gigabyte.

For reasons of simplicity a Kilobyte can be been taken to mean one thousand bytes, a megabyte one million bytes and Gigabyte one billion bytes.