Byte (B)

ComputingCurrent unit

Eight bits. The basic addressable unit of memory and storage.

The byte is the reference unit for digital storage on this site.

1 byte = 0.001 kilobytes

About the byte

Werner Buchholz coined the word byte in June 1956 while working on the IBM Stretch computer; the earliest supporting document is dated 11 June 1956. He respelled bite on purpose, in his words to avoid accidental mutation to bit. At that stage a byte was any group of one to six bits, and a move to eight bits was considered in August 1956 and built into the design soon after. Louis Dooley later claimed he had coined the term around 1956 or 1957 on the SAGE project at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, where it meant groups of four bits, but Fred Brooks credited Buchholz.

IBM's System/360 adopted the eight-bit byte, and its success made that size the standard. The symbol is a capital B, and the unambiguous alternative is octet, a word used in protocol standards such as RFC 791. A byte can hold 256 distinct values, enough for a letter of the alphabet in a simple character set, which is why files and memory addresses are counted in bytes.

Sources: Wikipedia: Byte; Wikipedia: Binary prefix

Byte conversion chart

1 byte expressed in every other digital storage unit:

Unit1 byte
Kilobytes0.001
Megabytes0.000001
Gigabytes1×10⁻⁹
Terabytes1×10⁻¹²
Bits8
Petabytes1×10⁻¹⁵
Kibibytes0.0009765625
Mebibytes9.536743164×10⁻⁷
Gibibytes9.313225746×10⁻¹⁰
Tebibytes9.094947018×10⁻¹³
Kilobits0.008
Megabits0.000008
Gigabits8×10⁻⁹
Exabytes1×10⁻¹⁸
Zettabytes1×10⁻²¹
Yottabytes1×10⁻²⁴
Pebibytes8.881784197×10⁻¹⁶
Exbibytes8.67361738×10⁻¹⁹
Terabits8×10⁻¹²
Kibibits0.0078125
Mebibits0.000007629394531
Gibibits7.450580597×10⁻⁹
Nibbles2

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