Bits and Bytes

Before we go any further in explaining configurations, you need to understand the bits and bytes of computers. At their most basic level, computers only understand the language of electricity: positive and negative, or on and off. Since computer hardware is electronic, to communicate with it we must speak its simple language. For this reason, we use the binary number system, system based on just two numbers or digits: 1 (for on) and O (for off). Each of these numbers is called a binary digit, or bit for short. A bit is the basic unit of data recognized by a computer.

Computer designers realized that they could make computers work faster by grouping bits together for presentation to the CPU. This is like our language — it's easier for us to speak in words, rather than spelling out each letter as we talk to one another. The term we use for a grouping of bits is a byte. A byte is a group of bits that can be operated on as a unit by the computer. Most modern computers have eight bits to a byte.

The binary number system is called a base 2 number system, since it has only two numbers. By contrast, we use the base 10 number system in our everyday lives. In that system, we count by powers of 10; in the binary system, we count by powers of 2. For example:

2¹ = 2

2²= 4

2³= 8

2⁴=16

A very important measure of the computer's power is the number of bytes of memory and storage it has. We commonly count bytes in the thousands, called kilobytes(KB), but using the base 2 number system. Therefore, 1KB is 2¹⁰ bytes, or 1,024 bytes. When memory and storage goes into the millions, it is called megabytes; 1MB is 2²⁰ (1,048,576) bytes. A gigabyte(GB) is 1 billion bytes, and a terabyte (ТВ) is 1 trillion bytes. With that understanding, let's explore configurations in more detail.