Bytes

Grouping of eight bits. While a bit can assume only two states, 0 and 1, a byte can store from 0 up to 255 different states. Most of the time a character is stored in a byte. Therefore, a byte can store up to 255 different characters. The standard ASCII character set consists of 128 characters; the additional characters generally used in PC software brings the total number of characters up to 255.