Byte- The unit of measure that represnts one unit of data.. For example, when your typing a letter using a Wordprocessing program, each time you press a key on the keyboard you push One Byte of information into the memory of the computer. How much information the computer's memory can hold at one time is based on the measurement of a Byte. If a computer has 256 Megabytes of memory, that means it can hold 250 Million (250,000,000) Bytes of information in it's memory at any one time.

Basic units of measure:
1 Byte = one key press
1 Kilobyte of data = 1,000 Bytes
1 Megabyte of data = 1,000,000 Bytes
1 Gigabyte of data = 1,000,000,000 Bytes

The Byte is also used to rate how much information can be stored on an output device. The following can help understand how much information can be stored on these media:
Floppy Disk 1.4 Megabytes (Equals about 4,600 single spaced, type written pages)
Zip Disk 250 Megabytes
CD Rom 600 Megabytes
DVD 6,000 Megabytes or 6 Gigabytes
Hard Drive 200 Gigabytes = 200,000,000,000 Bytes
Some new Hard Drives capacities are rated in Terabytes. 1 Terabyte = 1000 gigabytes.