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Byte

A row of 8 bits — holds one number from 0 to 255. The basic unit of everything digital.

A byte is 8 bits in a row, enough to store any number from 0 to 255. It became the standard "cup size" of computing: one byte per letter in English text, one byte per color channel in a pixel.

A kilobyte is a thousand bytes, a gigabyte a billion, a terabyte a trillion — your phone juggles trillions of these little rows every day.

The best way to make it stick: watch it run. Start an interactive lesson →