Digital computers must convert the information that the user enters into them (e.g., from documents, graphics, videos, or sound) into digital data. These data are really a series of 1s and 0s. Each 1 or 0 is called a binary digit (bit). The determination of whether a bit is a 0 (off) or a 1 (on) is made by the electronics in the computer hardware. Some computers make this determination by the polarity of magnetized material, while others determine the status of a bit by whether or not electricity is flowing along a circuit. Using these binary digits and a coding scheme such as ASCII or EBCDIC, eight bits are grouped into a byte with each byte representing one character (e.g., letter, punctuation mark, or number). These bytes are sent from one area of the computer to another and stored in various areas of the computer...