Topic: How much is 1 bit? - page 4. (Read 5849 times)

The term byte was coined by Werner Buchholz in July 1956, during the early design phase for the IBM Stretch computer.[5][6] It is a deliberate respelling of bite to avoid accidental mutation to bit.[1]

Early computers used a variety of 4-bit binary coded decimal (BCD) representations and the 6-bit codes for printable graphic patterns common in the U.S. Army (Fieldata) and Navy. These representations included alphanumeric characters and special graphical symbols. These sets were expanded in 1963 to 7 bits of coding, called the American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) as the Federal Information Processing Standard which replaced the incompatible teleprinter codes in use by different branches of the U.S. government. ASCII included the distinction of upper and lower case alphabets and a set of control characters to facilitate the transmission of written language as well as printing device functions, such as page advance and line feed, and the physical or logical control of data flow over the transmission media. During the early 1960s, while also active in ASCII standardization, IBM simultaneously introduced in its product line of System/360 the 8-bit Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code (EBCDIC), an expansion of their 6-bit binary-coded decimal (BCDIC) representation used in earlier card punches.[7] The prominence of the System/360 led to the ubiquitous adoption of the 8-bit storage size, while in detail the EBCDIC and ASCII encoding schemes are different.

In the early 1960s, AT&T introduced digital telephony first on long-distance trunk lines. These used the 8-bit µ-law encoding. This large investment promised to reduce transmission costs for 8-bit data. The use of 8-bit codes for digital telephony also caused 8-bit data octets to be adopted as the basic data unit of the early Internet.[citation needed]

The development of 8-bit microprocessors in the 1970s popularized this storage size. Microprocessors such as the Intel 8008, the direct predecessor of the 8080 and the 8086, used in early personal computers, could also perform a small number of operations on four bits, such as the DAA (decimal add adjust) instruction, and the auxiliary carry (AC/NA) flag, which were used to implement decimal arithmetic routines. These four-bit quantities are sometimes called nibbles, and correspond to hexadecimal digits.

The term octet is used to unambiguously specify a size of eight bits, and is used extensively in protocol definitions

I'm increasingly seeing people use the "bit" unit, how much is 1 bit? I've never seen this unit explained.

Same. A bit just sounds like a tiny piece of a coin. All the denominations are confusing though.

When I hear 'bit' in the cointext of Bitcoin I think of it as a satoshi, i.e. the smallest denomination. I know a lot of people tend to use it to refer to a bitcoin as it rolls of the tongue a little easier in conversation.

I'm increasingly seeing people use the "bit" unit, how much is 1 bit? I've never seen this unit explained.

the fact that this tread exists means bit is a terrible name, although having a name for the 100 satoshi unit is a nice thing, 'bit' is just a very stupid name.


there, that's logical.

1 dollar = 1 dollar
1/100 dollar = 1 cent (short for centi)
so 1/1000000th of a bitcoin = mike (short for micro)

People, get it together....

BTC1 Bitcoin = 1,000,000 Bits
BTC 0.000001 Bitcoin = 1 Bit
BTC 0.00000001 Bitcoin = 1 Satoshi
0.01 Bits = 1 Satoshi

Bit is solid because in the current protocol it leaves 1 Satoshi (the smallest possible increment) as 0.01 Bits.

This makes "Bits" or "Bit" compatible with every existing accounting system/shopping cart out there....

edit: DOH! added correct 0's

Nope. 1 bit (abbreviation for bitcoin) = 100,000,000 satoshi

100 satoshi is a mike ( abbreviation for microbitcoin) 

I'm increasingly seeing people use the "bit" unit, how much is 1 bit? I've never seen this unit explained.

Overloading terms is very common in English.  I'm not so sure about other languages.  With native English speakers, I'm not the least bit worried that context will be insufficient to make obvious the type of "bit" being discussed. 

I do think the psychological effect of "wow, I bought 40,000 bits for $20" will be beneficial to the exchange price.  It's semantics, but, I think it'll make a difference.

My hardware vendor says you can get a lot more bits for one dollar. The word is already taken. I agree with Danny, I will stick with what people actually use and where I live, I never heard "bit" for bitcoin.