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What are eight bits called?

Updated: 9/22/2023
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11y ago

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A "bit" as a unit of money was 1/8 of an old Spanish reale coin.

Smaller-denomination coins weren't readily available so change was often made by cutting reales into slices, much like a Pizza. The smallest slice was 1/8 of a reale which became known in English as a bit.

Even though reales were Spanish, they were commonly used in colonial America along with British Coins. When the US established the dollar as its currency the new coins' values were linked to the reale. The dollar was supposed to be a purely decimal currency based on multiples of 10, but an exception was made for compatibility with quarter-reale slices. That's why US Coins include a quarter (25¢) rather than the 20¢ pieces found in most decimal systems, and it also explains why a quarter is still sometimes referred to as "2 bits"; i.e. 2/8 of a dollar!

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11y ago
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