However, programs that were written for 32-bit processors still can't see that extra memory. Most computers now are using 64-bit processors, letting programs address 16 Exabytes of memory. That's very limiting when you're talking modern programs. The main upshot is that a 32-bit program can address, at most, 4 Gb of memory at once. Eventually, 16-bit processors made their way into PCs in the 90s, and 32-bit became the norm in the 00s. That was the basis of personal computing for a long time. When unsigned, it has possible values ranging from 0 to 255 when signed, it has -128 to 127. There are 2 8 (256) different possible values for 8 bits. The short, short version: Computer processors are generally referred to by their architecture, namely "how complicated an instruction can it handle." Old-ass PCs from the 1980s were 8-bit machines, meaning they could handle instructions that were 8 bits (one byte) long.
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