Units of informationA unit of information is any unit of measure of digital data size. In digital computing, a unit of information is used to describe the capacity of a digital data storage device. In telecommunications, a unit of information is used to describe the throughput of a communication channel. In information theory, a unit of information is used to measure information contained in messages and the entropy of random variables.
BitThe bit is the most basic unit of information in computing and digital communication. The name is a portmanteau of binary digit. The bit represents a logical state with one of two possible values. These values are most commonly represented as 1 and 0, but other representations such as true/false, yes/no, on/off, and +/− are also widely used.
Computer memoryComputer memory stores information, such as data and programs, for immediate use in the computer; instructions fetched by the computer, and data fetched and stored by those instructions, are located in computer memory. The terms memory, main memory, and primary storage are also used for computer memory. Computer memory is often referred to as RAM, meaning random-access memory, although some older forms of computer memory, such as drum memory, are not random-access.Octet (computing)The octet is a unit of digital information in computing and telecommunications that consists of eight bits. The term is often used when the term byte might be ambiguous, as the term byte has historically been used for storage units of a variety of sizes. The term octad(e) for eight bits is no longer common.
Character (computing)In computing and telecommunications, a character is the encoded representation of a natural language character (including letter, numeral and punctuation), whitespace (space or tab), or a control character (controls computer hardware that consumes character-based data). A sequence of characters is called a string. Some character encoding systems represent each character using a fixed number of bits whereas other systems use varying sizes.
8-bit computingComputer architecture bit width Computer architecture bit widths Bit 1481216182426303132364045486064128256512bit slicing Application 8163264 Binary floating-point precision 16 (×½)2432 (×1)4064 (×2)80128 (×4)256 (×8) Decimal floating-point precision 3264128 vte In computer architecture, 8-bit integers or other data units are those that are 8 bits wide (1 octet).
Computer architectureIn computer science and computer engineering, a computer architecture is the conceptual design and operational structure of a computer system that define how component parts are organized and interact to execute programs efficiently. It is often a general description that ignores precise implementation details. It covers the instruction set architecture, CPU microarchitecture, memory, and input/output systems.
Computer networkMetricsAlgorithmsCentralityGroup centralityDegreeMotifClusteringDegree distributionAssortativityDistanceModularityEfficiency ModelsListsCategoriesTopicsSoftwareNetwork scientistsIn computer science, computer engineering, and telecommunications, a network is a group of communicating computers and peripherals known as hosts, which communicate data to other hosts via communication protocols, as facilitated by networking hardware.
Bit numberingIn computing, bit numbering is the convention used to identify the bit positions in a binary number. The bits can be those in a memorybyte or word, or those of an internal CPUregister or data bus. Bit significance and indexing In computing, the least significant bit (LSb) is the bit position in a binaryinteger representing the lowest-order place of the integer. Similarly, the most significant bit (MSb) represents the highest-order place of the binary integer.
Address spaceIn computing, an address space defines a range of discrete addresses, each of which may correspond to a network host, a peripheral device, a disk sector, a physical memory location, a virtual memory location, or another logical or physical entity. Address spaces are created by combining enough uniquely identified qualifiers to make an address unambiguous within the address space.
Internet ProtocolThe Internet Protocol (IP) is the network layercommunications protocol in the Internet protocol suite for relaying datagrams across network boundaries. Its routing function enables internetworking, and essentially establishes the Internet. IP has the task of delivering packets from the source host to the destination host solely based on the IP addresses in the packet headers. For this purpose, IP defines packet structures that encapsulate the data to be delivered.
Request for CommentsA Request for Comments (RFC) is a publication in a series from the principal technical development and standards-setting bodies for the Internet, most prominently the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). An RFC is authored by individuals or groups of engineers and computer scientists in the form of a memorandum describing methods, behaviors, research, or innovations applicable to the working of the Internet and Internet-connected systems.*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.