Technology and Computer Evolution

Computer generations: Within modern computer systems the basic element of storage is the binary digit (or bit) which can represent a 0 or a 1. The reason for this is that it is very easy to build electronic switches where an off/on condition is used to represent a 0/1 binary value. Although a single bit can only have two states, 0 or 1, a sequence of bits can be used to represent a larger range of values. Such a sequence is called a word of storage and is usually 8, 16, 32, 64 or 128 bits in length.