Question

Why is 8 bits equal to a byte, and not more or less? Why 8?

Answer 1

a power of 2 is good. But otherwise it's arbitrary. Someone decided to use 2^3 at some point.

But nothing canonical about the choice of 3.

Answer 2

I just think that they chose 8 because they use 8 bits to encode those ASCII characters

Answer 3

That's redudant logic, you can encode them in higher bits as well if you so defiend them.

Answer 4

A byte is eight bits because in the 1960s, the most popular processors used 8-bit registers which allowed them to manipulate 8 bits at a time. This common usage of the term byte eventually became the standard due to its widespread usage.

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