# Mind your bits and pieces...

**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mind-your-bits-and-pieces/152331
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [February 2, 2003, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mind-your-bits-and-pieces/152331 "2003-02-02T18:49:24Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![Sinisterniik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/51bf81/32.png) [@Sinisterniik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sinisterniik)
#### Post date: [February 2, 2003, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mind-your-bits-and-pieces/152331/1 "2003-02-02T18:49:24Z")

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Looking back at the marketing gimmicks of my time, I realized very soon after the Nintendo 64 came out that 64 bits weren’t much to be bragging about. The fact is, bits don’t mean all that much to a gaming system. Despite my luck in learning that fact, I never really did learn what a bit was -or why it was always double the previous amount(ie SNES was 32). I know it has something to do with binary code (which I never learned) and  
something to do with the input/output of all those 0s and 1s that make up the screen you’re looking at right now. I just wish I knew more…

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### Author: ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)
#### Post date: [February 2, 2003, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mind-your-bits-and-pieces/152331/2 "2003-02-02T19:13:47Z")

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Explanations.

[http://www.kidsdomain.com/brain/computer/lesson/comp\_les3.html](http://www.kidsdomain.com/brain/computer/lesson/comp_les3.html)  
[http://www.romulus2.com/articles/guides/misc/bitsbytes.shtml](http://www.romulus2.com/articles/guides/misc/bitsbytes.shtml)  
[http://mistupid.com/computers/bytes.htm](http://mistupid.com/computers/bytes.htm)

> **[Unesp](https://www.ibilce.unesp.br/#!/courseware/datas/data1.htm)**
>
> Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho
