Chapter 4

Data Unit

To be exposed to the most basic data unit

To be exposed to the hierarchy forms of data unit: bit,
byte, KB, MB, TB, PB
To be exposed to the concept of speed measurement in
computers

The presence of a voltage is represented as 1 while

the absence is represented as 0
The 2 representations are referred to as a bit (binary
digit).
E.g. if we have a binary data of 1001 0011 then the
size of this data is 8 bit
The bit is further represented in bigger unit to
measure data : byte, kilobyte, megabyte etc.

short for binary digit

It is the smallest unit of data the computer can process.
It is a basic unit of information in a computer
It takes a value of either 0 or 1.
An on (1) or off (0) state of the electrical circuits.

Is the point of reference to measure data transfer rate

(bits per second).

Is a group of 8 bits.
Can represent a single character of data.
It is also the basis for counting storage capacity.
1 byte = 8 bits
As the grouping of data gets larger and larger, there
are other units of measurement that we can use, e.g. :
KB, MB, GB, TB

Kilo (K)= 103

Mega (M)= 106
Giga (G)= 109
Tera (T)= 1012
Deci (d) = 10-1
Mili (m)= 10-3
Micro () = 10-6
Nano (n) = 10-9
Pico (p)= 10-12
8

75 B = Y KB

75 KB = Y B

10

80 MB = Y B

11

20 KB = Y GB

12

50 MB = Y nB

13

35 GB = Y B

14

40 mB = Y B

15

50 B = Y nB

16

describes the amount of data transferable in a unit of time.

The terms use :
Bits per second (bps)
kilobits per second (Kbps)
Megabits per second (Mbps)
Gigabits per second (Gbps)
E.g.
A modem (dial up) can transfer 56 Kbps (about 56,000 bits ps 7000 bytes or 5 pages of text per second).
a 3G wireless modem can transfer 384 Kbps.

17

The fundamental rate in cycles per second at which a computer

performs its most basic operations such as adding two numbers
or transferring a value from one register to another.
The original IBM PC, circa 1981, had a clock rate of 4.77 MHz
(almost five million cycles/second). As of 1995, Intel's Pentium
chip runs at 100 MHz (100 million cycles/second). However
one instruction does not necessarily take one cycle to excute,
some takes more than a cycle.
Every computer contains an internal clock that regulates the
rate

18

The events within a computer happens at a pace

controlled by a tiny oscillator called a system clock.
The clock generates pulses measured in millions of
cycles per second (MHz).
A hertz (Hz) is an electrical cycle per second,
so 1 MHz is capable of processing 1 million cycles in one
second.

Unit of measurements are :

Hz, KHz, MHz, GHz.

19

1 KHz = 1000 Hz
1 MHz = 1000 KHz
1 GHz = 1000 MHz
All the measurement above can be used to measure the
performance of the computer in relative to speed.
However, there are many other factors to consider when
comparing different computers.
The amount of work different computer chips can do in one
cycle varies. Some can do more in one cycle that others. So
speed alone might not be enough to measure the performance of
a computer.

20