A computer is really nothing more than a series of switches. Each switch exists in two states:
on or
off. Storing information in a computer is simply a matter of setting a sequence of switches on or off. If the switch is on, its value is 1. If the switch is off, its value is 0. These 0s and 1s are interpreted as digits in the binary number system and are called
bits (binary digits). The minimum storage unit in a computer is a
byte. A byte is composed of eight bits. A small number such as 3 can be stored as a single byte. To store a number that cannot fit into a single byte, the computer uses several bytes. Data of various kinds, such as numbers and characters, are encoded as a series of bytes automatically by the computer based on an encoding scheme. An encoding scheme is a set of rules that govern how a computer translates characters, numbers, and symbols into data the computer can actually work with. Most schemes translate each character into predetermined strings of bits. In the popular
ASCII encoding scheme, for example, the character C is represented as 01000011 in one byte.
