Why do we use Bytes?

And why you shouldn’t take anything for granted

Introduction

Do you think we have lost our child-like trait to ask really simple questions, as we were often told off for asking them? So when your child asks you:

Why is the sky blue?

you think … “Good question … and mumble something about the colour of the sea” .. and then they say:

Why is the sea salty?

… and you shuffle away, and then they ask:

Why do people in Australia not fall off?

and then you buy them an ice-cream to keep them quiet for a while.

Personally I loved when my kids asked these questions, as it made me think deeper about I things took for granted, and I started to develop an eye for looking into things without taking them for granted.

In research and innovation, we must always keep asking ourselves some simple questions, as we often just take things for granted.

So let’s looking at one of the fundamental things in computing …

Why do we use bytes?

Is there something about it that makes it special? Is this the perfect size of a processing element, and its discovery was part of the fabric of the…