Bit
Short for binary digit, the smallest unit of information on a machine. The term was first used in 1946 by John Tukey, a leading statistician and adviser to five presidents. A single bit can hold only one of two values: 0 or 1. More meaningful information is obtained by combining consecutive bits into larger units. For example, a byteis composed of 8 consecutive bits.
Computers are sometimes classified by the number of bits they can process at one time or by the number of bits they use to represent addresses. These two values are not always the same, which leads to confusion. For example, classifying a computer as a 32-bit machine might mean that its data registers are 32 bits wide or that it uses 32 bits to identify each address in memory. Whereas larger registers make a computer faster, using more bits for addresses enables a machine to support larger programs.
Graphics are also often described by the number of bits used to represent each dot. A 1-bit image is monochrome; an 8-bit image supports 256 colors or grayscales; and a 24- or 32-bit graphic supports true color.
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- bit bucket
(bit buk´it) (n.) jargon. A computer��s trash can or recycle bin. In networking scenarios, the term is used to refer to the place where a firewall, router or proxy has discarded a packet.
- bit density
See areal density.
- BERT (Bit Error Rate Test)
BERT is short for bit error rate test (or tester). It is a procedure or device that measures the bit error rate of a transmission to determine if errors are introduced into the system when data is transmitted. May also be called BER testing.
- bit flip
(1) Switching a bit from 0 to 1 or 1 to 0. (2) Same as bit manipulation which is processing individual bits within a byte. This is considered to be very low-level programming and is often used in graphics and systems programming. (3) Similar to computer geek, bit flipper is the slang term used to […]
- Bit Map
)A representation, consisting of rows and columns of dots, of a graphics image in computer memory. The value of each dot (whether it is filled in or not) is stored in one or more bits of data. For simple monochrome images, one bit is sufficient to represent each dot, but for colors and shades of […]