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A KB is 2^10. Is a byte 2^0 or 2^1?

I've searched around a little bit to no avail. I'm leaning towards a plain byte being 2^0 compared to a KB being 2^10, MB 2^20, GB 2^30, etc... Thanks in advance for the help.

Is a byte 2^0? Or 2^1? Any explanation would also be appreciated as I'm really not just looking for an answer so much as I'm looking for understanding.

Solution

  • I misread your question, so I deleted my old answer:

    1 Kilobyte = 1024 bytes.

    So:

    1 Kilobyte = 2^10 bytes

    What you're asking is how much one byte is, in bytes. So the answer to that is easy:

    1 byte = 1 byte

    And yes you can express this as :

    1 byte = 2^0 bytes

    Because : anything to the power of 0 is 1

    But saying 1 byte = 2^0 bytes is a bit of a ridiculous thing ;)

    Cheat sheet, for future reference:

    x^0 = 1
x^1 = x

    Comment on your later comment:

     1KB memory bank system = 1024 bytes. 1024 / 128 bytes = 8 chips.