One of the main characteristics of a computer is its digital nature. No doubt you have herd this word often but what does it really mean?. Computers may seem like incredibly complicated devices but their underlying principle is simple . When you open up a microcomputer, what you see is mainly electronic circuitry. And what is the most basic statement that can be made about electricity? it is simply this, it can be either turned on or turned off.In a two state on/off arrangement, one state can represent a 1 digit, the other a 0 digit. People are most confirmable with the decimal number system, which has ten digits(0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9). Because computers are based on  on/off or other two stare conditions, they use the binary number system, which consists of only two digits-0 and 1.

The word digit simply means" numeral". The word digital is derived from "digit" which refers to the fingers people used to count with.Today, however digital is almost synonymous with "computer-based". Most specifically. it refers to communications signals or information represented in a discrete (individually distinct) form usually in a binary or two state way.

In the binary system each 0 and 1 is called a bit – short for binary digit. In turn, bits can be grouped in various combination to represent characters of data-numbers, letters, punctuation marks, and so on. For instance, the letter if could correspond to the electronic signal l01001000 ( that is , off-on-off-off-on-off-off-off). In computing a group of 8 bits is called a byte, and each character is represented by 1 byte. Digital data then consist of data in discrete, discontinuous form- usually 0s and 1s. This is the method of data representation by which computer process and store data can communicate with one another