How many characters in 8 bit?

Answer 1

256.

Here we have 8 bits...

00000000 or 11111111 or anything in between.

If we have 11111111 this is essentially 1 + 2 + 4 + 8 + 16 + 32 + 64 + 128

This adds up to 255. But wait....0 can represent something as well...255 + 1 = 256

However, in practice, 256 characters are never used for 8 bits. The theoretical maximum is indeed 256, however the ASCII (American Standards Code for Information Interchange) standard dictates that the first bit is to be used for something called parity. This is a small check to make sure that the correct code has been transmitted. For example, if there was the following transmission:

Character: @ASCII

ASCII Code: 06410

Binary: 010000002

However, there was electronic interference...

Interference: 000000012

Result:

00000001 = 110

01000000 = 6410

----------------------

01000001 = 6510

Character: AASCII

If this was an email address, instead of being john.smith@microsoft.com, it would now be john.smithAmicrosoft.com, which could be fatal for any communications.

Thus, parity is used... a parity bit is the very first bit of the binary octet. The rules are a bit hazy here, but let's just say that if it's 1, then the result must be even, and if it is 0, then the result is odd. This means that the signal would be:

Character: @ASCII

ASCII Code: 06410

Binary: 110000002

Interference: 000000012

Result:

110000012

Since there is a parity bit, the computer knows that there must have been a transmission error: 65 is not even.

Answer 2

256

The representation of 16 things in 4 bits looks like this:

0000

0001

0010

0011

0100

0101

0110

0111

1000

1001

1010

1011

1100

1101

1110

1111

Notice a pattern?

Each column is 2x the last one. The right most column alternates 1,0 all the way down the 2nd right column alternates 1,1,0,0 all the way down and so on growing by 2 for each column.

Bits are a Binary Pattern, so base 2 only uses 1's and 0's. To find the data representation used by 8 bits in binary (base 2) we simply take 2 to the power of 8 or 256.

Good luck with future computer science endeavors!

Answer 3

If you consider that there are two possibilities for each byte, then taking two to the eighth power gives you 256 different possibilities. If you mean there are a total of 24-bits, then you can take 2 to the 24th power to get the answer, or you can take 256 to the 3rd power. Either way, that should represent about 16.7 million possibilities.

Answer 4

Using 8 bits per pixel, how can represent 256, or 28 shades

Answer 5

256