Short for BinarY TablE. A common unit of computer storage made up of eight binary digits (bits). A ninth bit may be used in the memory circuits as a parity bit for error checking.
A byte holds the equivalent of a single character, such as the letter A, a dollar sign, or decimal point. For numbers, a byte can hold a single decimal digit (0 to 9), two numeric digits (packed decimal), or a number from 0 to 255 (binary numbers).