Q.Write base values of binary, octal and hexadecimal number system.

Digital Storage Units: From Intuition to Precision

Imagine you have a light switch. It can be either on or off — nothing in between. That single on/off choice is the smallest possible piece of information a computer can hold. We call that a bit (short for binary digit).

Now, one bit is too small to be useful by itself. So computers group bits together. The most common grouping is 8 bits, and that group is called a byte. A byte can represent a single character — the letter 'A', the digit '7', or a punctuation mark like '?'.

From here, we scale up using prefixes you already know from everyday life: kilo, mega, giga, tera. But there's a catch — and this is where most beginners get confused.

Here is the precise hierarchy, with both the binary (computer) meaning and the decimal (SI) meaning:

How to remember the order

Think of it like stacking blocks:

• 1 bit = one on/off switch
• 1 byte = 8 bits (enough for one letter)
• 1 KB = roughly one page of text
• 1 MB = a short novel (about 300 pages)
• 1 GB = a full-length movie
• 1 TB = about 200,000 songs or 300 hours of video

The "why" behind powers of 2

A computer's memory is built from transistors that can be in one of two states. If you have 1 transistor, you have 2 possibilities (on/off). With 2 transistors, you have $2 \times 2 = 4$ possibilities. With $n$ transistors, you have $2^n$ possibilities. That's why memory sizes are always powers of 2 — it's the most efficient way to use the hardware.

Final answer: A bit is the smallest unit (0 or 1). 8 bits = 1 byte. Then: 1 KB = 1024 bytes, 1 MB = 1024 KB, 1 GB = 1024 MB, 1 TB = 1024 GB — each step multiplying by 1024 ($2^{10}$).