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Diploma in Higher Education Studies

Bits and bytes: units of storage

HES 213 · Introduction to Computer Science — Week 9 of 16

CourseHES 213
Week9 of 16
SemesterII
TutorOnline in the course chat

This week’s topics

Bits and bytes: units of storage

  1. Bit, byte, KB, MB, GB, TB
  2. How much fits on a device

What you will be able to do

  • 3.2 Describe units of data storage (bit, byte, KB, MB, GB).

Activity

Work out how many photos or songs fit on a phone.

Study materials

Further resources

  • Introduction to Computer Science, 5.1: Data Storage Inside a Computer · PDF · OpenStax Introduction to Computer Science (2024), 5.1 on bits, bytes and megabytes, p. 195 · for registered students
  • Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective, 2.1.3: Data Sizes · PDF · Bryant & O'Hallaron, CS:APP 2e manuscript sample, 2.1.3 on bytes and data sizes (a step up), pp. 36–37 · for registered students
  • How to measure the world's technological capacity to communicate, store and compute (Part… · Open-access article · Hilbert & López (2012), International Journal of Communication. How information is measured in bits and bytes at a global scale. · for registered students
Materials marked “for registered students” open in the student portal, which is set up as soon as you receive final acceptance.
MidtermWeek 10
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Course plan
  • Week 1: What is a computer system?
  • Week 2: Hardware: the parts of a computer
  • Week 3: Software: system and application software
  • Week 4: The CPU and the fetch-execute cycle
  • Week 5: Memory: RAM, ROM and cache
  • Week 6: What an operating system does
  • Week 7: Comparing operating systems
  • Midterm: Midterm evaluation
  • Week 9: Bits and bytes: units of storage
  • Week 10: Storing text: ASCII and Unicode
  • Week 11: Storing images: pixels and colour depth
  • Week 12: Storing sound: sampling
  • Week 13: Storage devices
  • Week 14: Choosing a computer for a job
  • Week 15: Review and coursework completion
  • Final: Final assessment and submission
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