A quadbit is a unit of computer memory containing four bits, commonly used in packed decimal format to store long numbers. It coincides with the hexadecimal numbering system and is half of a byte.
A quadbit is a unit of computer memory containing four bits. When using a system known as packed decimal format to store extremely long numbers on a computer, one quadbit contains each digit.
To understand how useful a quadbit is, you must first remember that the smallest unit of computer memory is a bit. A bit is simply a digit, which can only be a zero or a one. This is the very basis of how computers work and very old machines actually had digits represented by individual gas bottles which were either empty or full depending on whether the relevant digit was zero or one.
A quadbit contains four bits. Since each bit can be one of two possibilities – a one or a zero – the number of possible combinations of data in a quadbit is 2 x 2 x 2 x 2, which equals 16. This very clearly coincides with the hexadecimal numbering system , in which that’s 16 units, compared to the 10 we use in the more common decimal system. These 16 units are usually represented by the numbers 0 to 9 and the letters A to F.
Hexadecimal is commonly used in computer science for the way that, since everything in computer science comes from the two possible values of the binary system, each “level” of data storage usually doubles, creating the series 1, 2, 4, 8, 16 , 32 and so on. An example of this is that a computer might have 256MB, 512MB, or 1.024MB of RAM, the latter figure being equivalent to 1GB. In theory each collection of data stored in a computer can be divided into 2 blocks, 4 blocks, 8 blocks, 16 blocks and so on. Since the hexadecimal system has 16 units, it fits perfectly into this pattern and makes it much easier to perform data storage-related calculations than our traditional decimal system.
The most common use of the quadbit is in packed decimal format. This takes an extremely long string of numbers, such as the raw form of a computer program or other data, and rewrites it as a string of binary numbers. Each digit of the original number is transformed into a string of four binary digits, in other words a quadbit. Using packed decimal format can allow computers to process data faster, but easily convert it back to its original format when finished.
The quadbit is commonly referred to as a tidbit. This is a form of pun based on the fact that the next largest unit of storage in computing is known as a byte. Since a byte is made up of 8 bits, a quadbit is half of a byte. The joke comes from the fact that in the English language a nibble is a word that means a small bite.
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