In Layman’s Terms #4: Bits, Bytes, FLOPS, And Hertz
In this issue of “In Layman’s Terms”, we’re going to look at a few terms related to memory and processing.
Bit
In terms of memory, a bit (short for binary digit) is the smallest possible unit of data on a computer system. A single bit is basically a tiny electrical ‘switch’ that’s either ‘on’ or ‘off’.’ They’re used for pretty much everything, from giving a system instructions to storing data. The ‘on’ or ‘off’ state of bits is related to machine code, where everything is expressed in ones and zeroes.
Bits don’t generally exist outside of eight string groupings known as bytes.
Byte
The next step up from bit, a byte is a string of eight bits. It’s also the basis for…pretty much every measurement of size and speed in computing (aside from Hertz). Consequently, a kilobyte is 1024 bytes, a megabyte is 1024 kilobytes, a gigabyte is 1024 megabytes and a terabyte is….well, you get the idea. You don’t really need to know much else about these units of measurement unless you want to get right into it and study binary (I’ll cover machine code and other basic programming languages in a later post).
Now, some of you might be wondering why the value is 1024 and not 1000. The reason for this is that binary basically expresses everything as a multiple of 2- so 1024 is the closest we can get to 1000.
FLOPS
And now, for something completely different. FLOPS – which stands for floating point operations per second. That doesn’t narrow it down a whole lot, does it? If we’re going to get any inkling of what FLOPS stands for, we’re going to need to figure out what a floating point operation is, aren’t we?
In binary, there are two systems for representing numbers that have decimal places: fixed point, and floating point. Fixed point systems are those in which there are only a few places the decimal place can go; in floating point systems the decimal can be placed anywhere. It’s overly simplistic, but it’ll do.
Generally, FLOPS isn’t a particularly important indicator of performance speed for standard computers, since floating point operations are primarily used in scientific calculations. In the case of supercomputers and systems used for research, how many FLOPS the system can handle is of vital importance, but for day to day users? Yeah, you probably don’t have to worry about it.
Hertz
If we’re going for a straight definition, Hertz is the standard unit of measurement for cycles per second. ‘One Hertz” is one cycle per second. Simple enough, right?
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