), starting from the first graphics adapters MDA and CGA to the latest AMD and NVIDIA architectures. Now it’s the turn to trace how central processors developed - an equally important component of any computer. In this part of the material we will talk about the 1970s, and therefore the first 4- and 8-bit solutions.

The first central processing units were centipedes

1940s–1960s

Before delving into the history of the development of central processing units, it is necessary to say a few words about the development of computers in general. The first CPUs appeared back in the 40s of the 20th century. Then they worked using electromechanical relays and vacuum tubes, and the ferrite cores used in them acted as storage devices. To operate a computer based on such chips, a huge number of processors were required. Such a computer was a huge case the size of a fairly large room. At the same time, it released a large amount of energy, and its performance left much to be desired.

Computer using electromechanical relays

However, already in the 1950s, transistors began to be used in processor designs. Thanks to their use, engineers were able to achieve more high speed operation of chips, and also reduce their power consumption, but increase reliability.

In the 1960s, integrated circuit manufacturing technology was developed, which made it possible to create microchips with transistors located on them. The processor itself consisted of several such circuits. Over time, technology has made it possible to place everything large quantity transistors on a chip, and therefore the number of integrated circuits used in the CPU was reduced.

However, the processor architecture was still very, very far from what we see today. But the release of the IBM System/360 in 1964 brought the design of the then computers and CPUs a little closer to the modern ones - primarily in terms of working with software. The fact is that before the advent of this computer, all systems and processors worked only with the program code that was written specifically for them. In its computers, IBM was the first to use a different philosophy: the entire line of CPUs of different performance supported the same set of instructions, which made it possible to write software that would run under any modification of the System/360.

IBM System/360 computer

Returning to the topic of System/360 compatibility, it must be emphasized that IBM paid a lot of attention to this aspect. For example, modern computers zSeries lines still support operation software, written for the System/360 platform.

Don't forget about DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation), namely its line of PDP (Programmed Data Processor) computers. The company was founded in 1957, and in 1960 it released its first minicomputer, the PDP-1. The device was an 18-bit system and was smaller in size than mainframes of the time, occupying “just” a corner of a room. A CRT monitor was integrated into the computer. Interestingly, the first in the world computer game called Spacewar! was written specifically for the PDP-1 platform. The cost of a computer in 1960 was $120,000, which was significantly lower than the price of other mainframes. However, the PDP-1 was not particularly popular.

Computer PDP-1

DEC's first commercially successful device was the PDP-8 computer, released in 1965. Unlike the PDP-1, new system was 12-bit. The cost of the PDP-8 was 16 thousand US dollars - it was the cheapest minicomputer of that time. Thanks to such a low price, the device became available to industrial enterprises and scientific laboratories. As a result, about 50 thousand of these computers were sold. Distinctive architectural feature The PDP-8 processor became its simplicity. So, it had only four 12-bit registers that were used for tasks various types. At the same time, the PDP-8 contained only 519 logic gates.

Computer PDP-8. Still from the film “Three Days of the Condor”

The architecture of PDP processors directly influenced the design of 4- and 8-bit processors, which will be discussed below.

Intel 4004

The year 1971 went down in history as the year the first microprocessors appeared. Yes, yes, such solutions that are used today in personal computers, laptops and other devices. And one of the first to declare itself was then just founded Intel company, launching the 4004, the world's first commercially available single-chip processor.

Before moving directly to the 4004 processor, it is worth saying a few words about Intel itself. It was created in 1968 by engineers Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore, who until then had worked for the benefit of Fairchild Semiconductor, and Andrew Grove. By the way, it was Gordon Moore who published the well-known “Moore’s Law”, according to which the number of transistors in a processor doubles every year.

Already in 1969, just a year after its founding, Intel received an order from the Japanese company Nippon Calculating Machine (Busicon Corp.) to produce 12 chips for high-performance desktop calculators. The initial design of the chips was proposed by Nippon itself. However, Intel engineers did not like this architecture, and an employee of the American company, Ted Hoff, proposed reducing the number of chips to four by using a universal central processor, which would be responsible for arithmetic and logical functions. In addition to the central processor, the chip architecture included RAM for storing user data, as well as ROM for storing software. After the final chip structure was approved, work continued on the microprocessor design.

In April 1970, Italian physicist Federico Fagin, who had also previously worked at Fairchild, joined the Intel engineering team. He had extensive experience in computer logic design and MOS (metal-oxide-semiconductor) silicon gate technologies. It was thanks to Federico's contribution that Intel engineers managed to combine all the chips into one chip. This is how the world's first microprocessor 4004 was released.

Intel 4004 processor

Concerning technical characteristics Intel 4004, then, by today's standards, of course, they were more than modest. The chip was produced using a 10-μm process technology, contained 2,300 transistors and operated at a frequency of 740 kHz, which meant it could perform 92,600 operations per second. DIP16 packaging was used as a form factor. The dimensions of the Intel 4004 were 3x4 mm, and there were rows of contacts on the sides. Initially, all rights to the chip belonged to Busicom, which intended to use the microprocessor exclusively in calculators of its own production. However, they ended up allowing Intel to sell its chips. In 1971, anyone could purchase a 4004 processor for approximately $200. By the way, a little later Intel bought all the rights to the processor from Busicom, predicting an important role for the chip in the subsequent miniaturization of integrated circuits.

Despite the availability of the processor, its scope was limited to the Busicom 141-PF calculator. There have also been rumors for a long time that the Intel 4004 was used in the design of the on-board computer of the Pioneer 10 unmanned spacecraft, which became the first interplanetary probe to fly near Jupiter. These rumors are directly refuted by the fact that the Pioneer on-board computers were 18- or 16-bit, while the Intel 4004 was a 4-bit processor. However, it is worth noting that NASA engineers considered the possibility of using it in their devices, but considered the chip not sufficiently tested for such purposes.

Intel 4040 processor

Three years after the release of the Intel 4004 processor, its successor, the 4-bit Intel 4040, was released. The chip was produced using the same 10-μm process technology and operated at the same clock frequency of 740 kHz. However, the processor has become a little more complex and has received a richer set of functions. Thus, the 4040 contained 3000 transistors (700 more than the 4004). The processor form factor remained the same, but instead of a 16-pin one, a 24-pin DIP was used. Among the improvements to the 4040, it is worth noting support for 14 new commands, increased stack depth to 7 levels, and support for interrupts. "Sorokovaya" was used mainly in test devices and equipment control.

Intel 8008

In addition to 4-bit processors, in the early 70s, an 8-bit model, the 8008, also appeared in Intel’s arsenal. At its core, the chip was an 8-bit version of the 4004 processor with a smaller clock frequency. This should not be surprising, since the development of the 8008 model was carried out in parallel with the development of the 4004. So, in 1969, Computer Terminal Corporation (later Datapoint) commissioned Intel to create a processor for Datapoint terminals, providing them with an architecture diagram. As with the 4004, Ted Hoff proposed integrating all the chips into one chip, and CTC agreed with this proposal. The development progressed smoothly towards completion, but in 1970 CTC abandoned both the chip and further cooperation with Intel. The reasons were trivial: Intel engineers did not invest in the development deadlines, and the functionality of the provided “stone” did not meet CTC’s requests. The contract between the two companies was terminated, and Intel retained the rights to all developments. The Japanese company Seiko became interested in the new chip, whose engineers wanted to use new processor in your calculators.

Intel 8008 processor

One way or another, after the end of cooperation with CTC, Intel renamed the chip being developed 8008. In April 1972, this processor became available for order at a price of $120. After Intel was left without CTC support, the company was cautious about the commercial prospects of the new chip, but the doubts were in vain - the processor sold well.

The technical characteristics of the 8008 were largely similar to the 4004. The processor was manufactured in an 18-pin DIP form factor according to 10-μm technology standards and contained 3,500 transistors. The internal stack supported 8 levels, and the volume of supported external memory was up to 16 KB. The 8008 clock speed was set at 500 kHz (240 kHz lower than the 4004). Due to this, 8-bit Intel processor often lost in speed to 4-bit.

Several computer systems were built based on the 8008. The first of these was a not very well-known project called The Sac State 8008. This system was developed within the walls of the University of Sacramento under the leadership of engineer Bill Pentz. Despite the fact that for a long time the Altair 8800 system was considered the first microcomputer created, The Sac State 8008 is the one. The project was completed in 1972 and was a fully functional computer for processing and storing patient medical records. The computer included an 8008 processor itself, HDD, 8 KB random access memory, color display, interface for connecting to mainframes, as well as its own operating system. The cost of such a system was extremely high, so The Sac State 8008 was never able to gain proper distribution, although for quite a long time it had no competitors in terms of performance.

This is what The Sac State 8008 looked like

However, The Sac State 8008 is not the only computer built on the 8008 processor. Other systems were created, such as the American SCELBI-8H, the French Micral N and the Canadian MCM/70.

Intel 8080

As with the 4004 processor, after some time the 8008 also received an update in the form of the 8080 chip. However, in the case of the 8-bit solution, the changes made to the processor architecture were much more significant.

The Intel 8080 was introduced in April 1974. First of all, it should be noted that the production of the processor has been transferred to a new 6-micron process technology. Moreover, the manufacturing used N-MOS (n-channel transistor) technology - unlike the 8008, which was produced using P-MOS logic. The use of a new technical process made it possible to place 6,000 transistors on a chip. The form factor used was a 40-pin DIP.

The 8080 model received a richer instruction set, which included 16 data transfer commands, 31 data processing commands, 28 direct addressing commands, and 5 control commands. The processor clock frequency was 2 MHz - 4 times more than its predecessor. The 8080 also had a 16-bit address bus, which allowed addressing 64 KB of memory. These innovations ensured high performance of the new chip, which was approximately 10 times higher than that of the 8008.

Intel 8080 processor

The 8080 processor in its first revision contained a serious bug that could lead to freezing. The error was corrected in an updated revision of the chip, called 8080A and released only six months later.

Thanks to high performance The 8080 processor became very popular. It was even used in control systems street lighting and traffic lights. However, it was mainly used in computer systems, the most famous of which was the MITS Altair-8800, introduced in 1975.

The Altair-8800 ran on the Altair BASIC operating system, and the S-100 interface was used as the bus, which a few years later became the standard for all personal computers. The technical characteristics of the computer were more than modest. It had only 256 bytes of RAM and did not have a keyboard or monitor. The user operated the computer by entering programs and data in binary form by clicking a set of small keys that could occupy two positions: up and down. The result was also read in binary form - by extinguished and illuminated light bulbs. However, the Altair-8800 became so popular that a small company like MITS simply could not keep up with the demand for computers. The popularity of the computer was directly contributed to by its low cost - $621. At the same time, for 439 US dollars you could purchase a computer in disassembled form.

Computer Altair-8800

Returning to the topic of 8080, it should be noted that there were many clones of it on the market. The marketing landscape back then was completely different from what we see today, and it was profitable for Intel to license third-party companies to produce copies of the 8080. Many large companies were involved in the production of clones, such as National Semiconductor, NEC, Siemens and AMD. Yes, in the 70s, AMD did not yet have its own processors - the company was exclusively engaged in the production of “remakes” of other crystals at its own facilities.

Interestingly, there was also a domestic copy of the 8080 processor. It was developed by the Kyiv Research Institute of Microdevices and was called KR580VM80A. Several versions of this processor were released, including for use in military facilities.

"Independent" KR580VM80A

In 1976 it appeared updated version chip 8080, which received the index 8085. The new crystal was manufactured using a 3-micron technical process, which made it possible to place 6500 transistors on the chip. The maximum processor clock speed was 6 MHz. The set of supported instructions contained 79 instructions, among which were two new instructions for controlling interrupts.

Zilog Z80

The main event after the release of 8080 was the dismissal of Federico Faggin. The Italian did not agree with the company's internal policies and decided to leave. Together with former Intel manager Ralf Ungermann and Japanese engineer Masatoshi Shima, he founded the company Zilog. Immediately after this, the development of a new processor began, similar in its architecture to the 8080. Thus, in July 1976, the Zilog Z80 processor, binary compatible with the 8080, appeared.

Federico Fagin (left)

Compared to the Intel 8080, the Zilog Z80 had many improvements, such as an expanded instruction set, new registers and instructions for them, new interrupt modes, two separate register blocks, and a built-in dynamic memory regeneration circuit. In addition, the cost of the Z80 was much lower than the 8080.

As for the technical characteristics, the processor was manufactured according to 3-μm technological standards using N-MOS and CMOS technologies. The Z80 contained 8500 transistors, and its area was 22.54 mm 2. The clock speed of the Z80 varied from 2.5 to 8 MHz. The data bus width was 8 bits. The processor had a 16-bit address bus, and the amount of addressable memory was 64 KB. The Z80 was produced in several form factors: DIP40 or 44-pin PLCC and PQFP.

Processor Zilog Z80

The Z80 very quickly surpassed all competing solutions in popularity, including the 8080. The processor was used in computers from companies such as Sharp, NEC and others. The Z80 also found its way into Sega and Nintendo consoles. In addition, the processor was used in slot machines, modems, printers, industrial robots and many other devices.

ZX Spectrum

A device called the ZX Spectrum is worthy of special mention, despite the fact that our story today does not concern the decisions of the 80s of the last century. The computer was developed by the British company Sinclair Research and was released in 1982. The ZX Spectrum was far from SR's first development. In the early 1970s, the head of the company and its chief engineer, Clive Sinclair, were engaged in selling radio components by mail. Towards the mid-70s, Clive created a pocket calculator, which became the company's first successful invention. Note that the company was not directly involved in the development of the calculator. They managed to find a successful combination of design, functionality and cost, thanks to which the device sold well. The next Sinclair device was also a calculator, but with a richer set of functions. The device was intended for a more “advanced” audience, but it failed to achieve much success.

Clive Sinclair - "father" of the ZX Spectrum

After calculators, Sinclair decided to focus on developing full-fledged computers, and between 1980 and 1981 the ZX line of home computers appeared: the ZX80 and ZX81. But the most popular solution was the system released in 1982 called ZX Spectrum. Initially, it was supposed to enter the market under the name ZX83, but at the last moment it was decided to rename the device to emphasize the computer's support for color images.

The ZX Spectrum became popular primarily due to its simplicity and low cost. The computer looked like game console. A TV, which was used as a monitor, and a cassette recorder, which served as a storage device, were connected to it through external interfaces. On the Spectrum body there was a multifunctional keyboard with 40 rubber keys. Each button had up to seven meanings when operating in different modes.

ZX Spectrum computer

The internal architecture of the ZX Spectrum was also quite simple. Thanks to the use of ULA (Uncommitted Logic Array) technology, the main part of the computer circuit was placed on a single chip. The central processor was a Zilog Z80 with a clock frequency of 3.5 MHz. The amount of RAM was 16 or 48 KB. True, some third-party manufacturers produced 32 KB memory modules, which were inserted into one of the Spectrum expansion ports. The ROM volume was 16 KB, and the dialect was sewn into memory BASIC language called Sinclair BASIC. The ZX Spectrum only supported single-bit audio output through the built-in speaker. The computer only worked graphic mode(8 colors and 2 brightness levels). Consequently, there was no text mode support. The maximum resolution was 256x192 pixels.

23.06.2011 00:00

Do you think schoolboy Denis Popov is a role model? No, the model student who is probably smarter than the vast majority of the world's population is Jack Eisenmann, who built his own eight-bit computer from scratch. And also who wrote a hex editor for it, his own OS, simple applications and even toys like Donkey Kong and Pong.

Jack is a programmer by vocation; he recently graduated high school. When assembling a computer, he decided not to follow the standard scenario (which involves buying ready-made components), but to build a computer from scratch using radio components, a bunch of TTL chips, an old keyboard and a simple TV.

The young lover of electronics and programming designed the processor, video processor and other auxiliary circuits in advance (“on paper”) - every detail, every wiring. And then he assembled his own computer on a circuit board. When the computer assembly was completed, he began writing his own operating system, simple programs and even gaming applications.

The new computer is called Duo Adept, its specifications are comparable to some Dandy console, but it works and performs the tasks given to it. The computer is equipped with 64 kilobytes of memory, of which 6 kilobytes are allocated for the video memory of a homemade video adapter capable of displaying a black-and-white image in a resolution of 240 x 208 pixels.

After writing your own hex editor the author of the project began creating software for Duo Adept: a “drawing program”, a “calculator” and the games “Pong”, “Life” and a Donkey Kong-like platformer toy called “Get Muffin”.

And you say Denis Popov...

P.S. If you are interested in this topic, read about another homemade computer, which we wrote about back in early May.

Friends, I know you have heard the terms gigabytes, terabytes or petabytes more than once. But what exactly do they mean, and most importantly, is it a lot or a little in the realities in which we live today? Let's take a closer look at this issue in today's article.

Concepts such as byte, megabyte, gigabyte and petabyte are the amount of digital storage. It's certainly useful to know what these terms mean, especially when it comes to comparing the size of information occupied by your hard drive, tablet, and flash memory devices.

This is also useful to know when comparing data rates.

Bits, Bytes and Kilobytes

Let's start with the basics, with the smallest and most insignificant in modern realities. It’s hard to imagine today, but literally 10 years ago, information was very “heavy”, information storage devices were very small, and you had to live with it somehow.

The smallest unit of storage is called a bit (denoted as - b). It is capable of storing only one binary digit—either a 1 or a 0. When we refer to a bit, especially as part of a larger value, we often use the lowercase “b.” For example, a kilobit is one thousand bits, and a megabit is one thousand kilobits. When we cut 40 megabits, we will use the following construction - 40 megabytes (Mb).

Following the bit comes the byte (B). A byte contains eight bits. The shortened form of a byte is the letter “B”. For example, on average, it takes about 10 B to store one word.

The next step up from a byte is a kilobyte (kbyte), which is equivalent to 1024 bytes of data (or 8192 bits). We shorten kilobytes to kbytes. It takes about 10 KB to store one page of plain text.

Megabytes (MB)

Now we know that 1024 KB are contained in one megabyte (MB). Now there is something to visualize, and here I have a very interesting information. In the late 90s, consumer products (mass production) such as hard disks, measured in megabytes. Here are some examples of how much you can store in Megabytes:

1 MB = 400 book pages

5 MB = Average 4-minute mp3 song

650 MB = 1 CD-ROM with 70 minutes of audio

1024 bytes = one kilobyte;

1024 kilobytes = one megabyte;

Gigabytes (GB, GB)

Here we get to more realistic numbers. Despite the fact that information storage devices have come quite far. The most common volume is devices with a size of Gigabytes. Yes, most of it hard drives today they are measured in Terabytes, but all other devices, for now, store information on Gigabyte storage devices (this includes memory cards, smartphone memory, SSD drives)

Examples from life:

1 GB = 9 meters of books on a shelf

4.7 GB = Capacity of one DVD-ROM

7 GB = How much data you will exchange per hour when watching streams in HD quality

Terabytes (TB)

One terabyte (TB, TB) contains 1024 GB. Currently, TB acts as the most common unit of information when it comes to standard sizes of hard drives (not SSDs).

Examples from life:

1 TB = 200,000 5-minute songs; 310,000 shots; or 500 hours of films.

10 TB = Amount of data acquired by the Hubble Space Telescope per year

24 TB = amount of video data uploaded to YouTube every day in 2016.

Petabytes (Pb, PB)

There are 1024 TB (or about a million GB) in one petabyte (PB). It won't be long before we see petabytes replacing terabytes as the standard measurement for consumer-level storage in the future.

Examples from life:

1 PB = 500 billion pages standard text(or 745 million floppy disks)

1.5 PB = 10 billion photos on Facebook

20 PB = Amount of data processed by Google daily in 2008!!!

Exabyte (Eb, Ebyte)

There are 1024 PB in one Exabyte (Ebyte). Here we come to the business giants, namely Amazon, Google, Yandex, Facebook, VKontakte (which process incredible amounts of data). It is in these companies that people know about such volumes and can imagine how much it is. At the consumer level, some (but not all) file systems, used operating systems today, have a limit somewhere in Exabytes

Examples from life:

1 EB = 11 million 4K videos;

5 Eb = All words known to mankind;

The list is incomplete, there are still zettabytes and yottabytes. But to be honest, exabytes are already an astronomical figure, which now has practically no real application.

What is information in the computer field?

Nowadays, electronic computers with a memory capacity of 1 terabyte are quite popular. How much is this in GB or MB? To understand what information is and how to transfer it from one measure to another, first of all, it is necessary to understand that in a computer environment any symbols are represented in binary form in the form of zeros and ones. A computer machine, receiving commands and data from input devices, is capable of storing, processing and translating information into the form we are familiar with on an output mechanism, such as a monitor, the screen of a phone, tablet or other technical device.

To translate any type of information - text, graphic, audio or video - a data transformation called encoding is used. So, you can convert data from the decimal system to binary, and vice versa. Information will be calculated in bytes, megabytes, terabytes. You may ask how many gigabytes are in a terabyte. We will talk about this a little later, as soon as we describe the information translation system.

An example of converting information from the decimal number system to the binary system and the measure of their storage

Let us have the number 156 in decimal system. We need to convert it to digital format. How to do this manually? It is necessary to divide it by 2 until this becomes impossible.

1. First action: 156/2=78. The remainder of the division is 0, this will be the last digit in the binary system for measuring information, and, accordingly, it is entered into certain memory cells of a computer device and stored in the form of bits - the minimum measure of information.
2. Next - 78/2=39. The remainder of the division is again 0. The penultimate digit of the binary code will again be 0. It takes up very little space, so it will be calculated in bits. But to record a huge amount of video information, a large amount of computer memory is needed, for example, a terabyte. How many bits is this, you ask? Let's get to this question.
3. The next stage of division is more interesting. We have the number 39. It is not completely divisible by the number 2. What needs to be done? 39/2=19. The remainder of the division is 1. This digit will be the third from the end of the binary code.
4. Subsequent action - 19/2=9 (with remainder 1). We write down the remainder before the three existing digits from the answer.
5. 9/2=4 with a remainder of 1. We write this unit as the fifth from the end of the response binary code.
6. 4/2=2 without remainder. Therefore, we add 0 to the binary code.
7. 2/2=1. The remainder of the division is 0, enter it into the code and do not forget to add the remaining unit.

So we managed to convert a simple decimal number into binary machine code, which the computer can handle in a fraction of milliseconds, converting it into bits. But a prime number takes up very little memory compared to graphic objects or video recordings in HD quality. Many people ask the following question: “1 terabyte - how many gigabytes, and how many files can be stored on a disk with such a capacity?” Considering that a terabyte is one of the maximum units of measurement, this is quite a lot.

Existing units of measurement of the volume of digital information

The smallest unit of information volume in the computer field is considered to be a bit, which can have the value 0 or 1. Next to it is a byte. It is equal to eight bits. Nowadays, flash drives, memory cards and removable media no longer create less than 1 gigabyte. Yes, and this is considered too small a volume. They practically no longer buy computer devices with a capacity internal memory less than 1 terabyte. How much is this in gigabytes? One terabyte contains 1024 gigabytes. An impressive figure, isn't it? But this is not the limit value. The maximum value of the measure of information volume is considered to be this moment yottabyte.

Converting one unit of measurement to another

To convert from a smaller unit to a larger quantity of information, and vice versa, from a larger one to a smaller one, you need to know the basic quantities and their translation. The minimum value contains only two characters and is called binary.

The next largest unit of measurement has a similar name - byte. It contains 8 bits, and, accordingly, 16 characters. Next, the already known prefixes kilo-, mega-, giga-, tera-, etc. are used, which correspond to numbers in the binary system: 2 10 = 10 2, 2 20 = 10 3, 2 30 = 10 4, 2 40 = 10 5.

The above describes the method for converting decimal numbers to binary. If someone doesn’t understand how many gigabytes are in a terabyte, use an online calculator that can automatically calculate any value and unit of measurement.

How to use an online calculator to convert units of measurement?

There are many programs for converting numbers from one unit of measurement to another. To translate any amount of information, you need to find a unit of information converter. If you need to calculate 1 terabyte, how many MB, GB or bits it is, then enter “1” in the empty cell, select from the drop-down list the value from which you want to convert (in this case, TB). In another drop-down list - the unit to which the transfer needs to be made. This can be either a smaller or a larger measure of measurement. You will receive an answer immediately.

How many removable flash drives can 1 1TB hard drive replace?

Have you ever wondered how much information a 1 terabyte hard drive can hold? How many flash drives are these with an average capacity of 32 GB? 1024/32 = 32 flash drives. What if these are 64 gig flash drives? Then 1024/64 = 16 information storage devices. Quite a lot, isn't it? Isn't it easier to buy computer device such a huge size and never again worry that you have nowhere to store photos, videos, necessary programs for work and play?

How to remember units of measurement of information volume?

To quickly and easily remember that 1 terabyte is how many gigabytes, you only need to read an interesting joke about programmers once. It sounds something like this: “What is the difference between an ordinary person and a programmer? He thinks that there are 1000 g in 1 kg of sausages, but the programmer estimates it at 1024 g.”

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In order to thoroughly understand what Bits are, what Bytes are and why all this is needed, let’s first dwell a little on the concept of “Information”, since this is what the work is based on computer technology and data networks, including our beloved Internet.
For a person, Information is some knowledge or information that people exchange in the process of communication. At first, knowledge was exchanged orally, passed on to each other, then writing appeared and information began to be transmitted using manuscripts, and then books. For computing systems, Information is data that is collected, processed, stored and transmitted further between parts of the system, or between different computer systems. But if earlier information was placed in books and its volume could be at least somehow visually assessed, for example in a library, then in the context of digital technologies it has become virtual and cannot be measured using the usual and familiar metric system to which we are accustomed. Therefore, units of information measurement were introduced - Bits and Bytes.

Bit of information

In a computer, information is stored on special media. Here are the most basic and familiar to most of us:

Hard drive (HDD, SSD) - optical disk(CD, DVD) - removable USB drives (flash drives, USB-HDD) - memory cards (SD, microSD, etc.)

Your Personal Computer or the laptop receives information, mainly in the form of files with varying amounts of data. Each of these files is received, processed, stored and transmitted by any data carrier at the hardware level in the form of a sequence of signals. There is a signal - one, no signal - zero. Thus, all information stored on the hard drive - documents, music, films, games - is presented in the form of zeros: 0 and ones: 1. This number system is called binary (only two numbers are used).
Here is one unit of information (it makes no difference whether it is 0 or 1) and is called bit. The word itself bit came to us as an abbreviation for bi nary digi t- binary number. What is noteworthy is that English language There is a word bit - a little, piece. Thus, a bit is the smallest unit of information.

How many bits are in a byte

As you already understood above, a bit in itself is the smallest unit in the information measurement system. That is why it is completely inconvenient to use it. As a result, in 1956, Vladimir Buchholz introduced another unit of measurement - Byte, like a bundle of 8 bits. Here is a visual example of a byte in the binary system:

00000001 10000000 11111111

Thus, these 8 bits are a Byte. It is a combination of 8 digits, each of which can be either a one or a zero. There are 256 combinations in total. Something like that.

Kilobyte, Megabyte, Gigabyte

Over time, the volume of information grew, and in last years in geometric progression. Therefore, it was decided to use the prefixes of the SI metric system: Kilo, Mega, Giga, Tera, etc.
The prefix “kilo” means 1000, the prefix “mega” means million, “giga” means billion, etc. At the same time, it is impossible to draw analogies between an ordinary kilobit and a kilobyte. The fact is that a kilobyte is not a thousand bytes, but 2 to the 10th power, that is, 1024 bytes.

Accordingly, a megabyte is 1024 kilobytes or 1048576 bytes.
A gigabyte is equal to 1024 megabytes or 1048576 kilobytes or 1073741824 bytes.

For simplicity, you can use the following table:

As an example, I would like to give these numbers:
A standard A4 sheet with printed text takes up about 100 kilobytes on average.
An ordinary photograph on a simple digital camera - 5-8 megabytes
Photos taken with a professional camera - 12-18 megabytes
A music track in mp3 format of average quality for 5 minutes - about 10 megabytes.
An ordinary 90-minute film, compressed in normal quality - 1.5-2 gigabytes
The same film in HD quality - from 20 to 40 gigabytes.

P.S.:
Now I will answer the questions that beginners most often ask me.
1. How many Kilobits are in a Megabit? The answer is 1000 kilobits (SI system)
2. How many Kilobytes are in a Megabyte? The answer is 1024 Kilobytes
3. How many Kilobits are in a Megabyte? The answer is 8192 kilobits
4. How many Kilobytes are in a Gigabyte? The answer is 1,048,576 Kilobytes.