Glossary for Geospatial Science

bit:The smallest unit of computer data having a single value of either “1” or “0”.  A contraction of the two words “Binary” and “digit”.  Binary data is 1-bit data.  Computers normally manipulate bits at least 8 at time.  A group of 8 bits is called a byte.  A computer’s processing power is often measured by the number of bits it handles at once.  The earliest PC’s were 8-bit machines.  More recently processors and data structures for 16-bit, 24-bit and 32-bit data have become common.