What are 8 bits grouped together as a unit called?

8 bits combined into a sequence is called a byte. A bit is a single binary digit consisting of a 0 or a 1. A byte can represent a decimal number up to 256, and it was designed to encode a single alphanumerical character or mathematical symbol.

Bits and bytes describe digits and sequences of binary code, which is a base-2 number system. Base-2 means that it uses two different digits: 0s and 1s. The numbers we use in everyday life are part of the decimal system. This is a base-10 system which uses 10 digits, 0 to 9.

Other names for sequences of bits include;

• Kilobyte, which is 1,024 bytes or 8192 bits.
• Megabyte, which is 1,024 kilobytes, 1,048,576 bytes, or 8,388,608 bits.
• Gigabyte, which is 1,024 megabytes, 1,048,576 kilobytes, 1,073,741,824 bytes, or 8,589,934,592 bits