7. Explain what a byte is, why it is called a byte, and how many characters can be represented.

One byte equals eight bits and can contain up to 2⁸ = 256 pieces of information, although the standard character set contains only 2⁷ = 128 pieces of information, with one bit allocated as a parity bit. The reason it is called a byte is because IBM decided that is what it would call it.