Bytes, digital

The division of two numbers of s significant digits each can yield results that require nearly any number of digits (only a few if one number is a simple multiple of the other, many if one or both numbers are irrational) usually the number of bytes the computer displays or uses for calculation... 

A dedicated microcomputer is interfaced to the Instron instrument in order to collect the raw data. The microcomputer consists of an 8080A microprocessor, 32K bytes of memory, A/D converter, serial I/O for communication, parallel I/O for digital control and sensing, a real-time programmable clock, and vectored interrupt control. 

Computers contain read-only memory whose contents are permanent (i.e., can only be read and not written to by the user) along with random access memory that can both be read from and written to by the user. The basic computing unit is a bit (b), which stands for binary digit 8 bits comprise a byte (B). Table 3.5 illustrates calculation of computer memory bytes, i.e., the number of locations that can be addressed. 

Not all relatively new and universally recognizable cyber terms have sinister connotations or meanings, of course. Consider, for example, the following digital terms backup, binary, bit, byte, CD-ROM, CPU, database, e-mail, HTML, icon, memory, cyberspace, modem, monitor, network, RAM, Wi-Fi (wireless fidelity), record, software, World Wide Web—none of these terms normally generates thoughts of terrorism in most of us. 

The second possibility for improving microcomputer floating point performance lies with the North Star Hardware Floating Point Board (3). This device executes floating point, add, subtract, multiply and divide with up to twelve decimal digits of precision. One byte of data is reserved for the exponent and the other six for the mantissa of each floating point number. 

The microcomputer system chosen is based on the Pro-Log 8821 processor card which uses the Intel 8080A microprocessor. In addition, this card contains lk bytes of RAM memory and sockets for up to 4k bytes of EPROM memory containing the programs used in data collection and communication. The system also contains 32k bytes of RAM memory for data storage. Analog to digital... 

Size, in computer terms, uses idiosyncratic units in addition to the bit and byte. Outside the world of computing, the prefixes kilo, mega, giga, and tera ordinarily refer to 10, 10, 10, and 10, respectively. However, when used with byte, they refer instead to 2, 2 , 2, and 2 . That is, a kilobyte is not 1000 bytes but 1024 bytes. The reason is that addresses, the numbers that refer to the location of digital data, are binary numbers, so a kilobyte is the total number of bytes that can be addressed by a ten bit address, and it carries the kho prefix because it is the power of 2 closest to 1000. Likewise a megabyte is 1,048,576 bytes because it is the power of 2 closest to 1,000,000, and represents the number of locations addressable by 20 bits. 

Life, as we will explain, runs on base 4 the DNA bases A, G, C, and T. Computers (except analog computers, now rarely used) run on base 2. That is, they are digital and use binary logic for digits, based on two symbols typically expressed as 0 and 1. Deep down, the work in binary logic, such as 1 = true, 0 = false, and binary arithmetic on binary numbers 0 = 0,1 = 1,10 = 2,11 = 3, 110 = 6, 111 = 7,..., blocks of 8 bits a time (e.g., a byte), could also represent a machine code instruction such as add or jump to another part of the calculation. ... 

---