Chapter 1: Problem 9

What amount of memory is enough to store a letter of the alphabet or a small number?

Short Answer

Expert verified

Answer: 1 byte

Step by step solution

Understand the ASCII representation of characters and small numbers

ASCII is a character encoding standard that assigns a unique 7-bit binary code to each character, including uppercase and lowercase letters of the alphabet, digits, punctuation marks, and some special characters. Since computers commonly operate on 8-bit values (1 byte), each character in the ASCII table is represented by 1 byte.

Calculate the amount of memory needed to store a single letter or small number

To store a single letter (A-Z or a-z) or small number (0-9) using the ASCII encoding, we need to reserve 1 byte of memory. This is because the ASCII encoding represents each character using 7 bits, but computers usually operate on 8-bit values (1 byte), which means that each character requires 1 byte of storage.

Conclude the memory requirement for storing a letter of the alphabet or a small number

In conclusion, to store a single letter of the alphabet or a small number using the ASCII encoding, 1 byte of memory is sufficient. This is due to the fact that ASCII uses a 7-bit binary code for each character, but computers typically operate on 8-bit values (1 byte).

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What amount of memory is enough to store a letter of the alphabet or a small number?

Short Answer

Step by step solution

Understand the ASCII representation of characters and small numbers

Calculate the amount of memory needed to store a single letter or small number

Conclude the memory requirement for storing a letter of the alphabet or a small number

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