12.5 cents is a weird denomination at first glance, but it's actually 1/2 of a quarter. It ought to say 1/8th dollar.
1/8th used to be called "a bit"
The term "two bit whore" meant she'd work for a quarter - which means she was cheap. That's a little under $20 in today's money so not as cheap as you might think.
The fact that bits mean eighths is a coincidence with the fact that computing settled on 8 bits per byte. Early computing used decimal with 4 or 5 bits per digit (that was hell). Later there were machines with 9 bit bytes. 8 bits was something that just emerged as a convenient power of two that was in the right order of magnitude for machines of the era.
1/8th used to be called "a bit"
The term "two bit whore" meant she'd work for a quarter - which means she was cheap. That's a little under $20 in today's money so not as cheap as you might think.
The fact that bits mean eighths is a coincidence with the fact that computing settled on 8 bits per byte. Early computing used decimal with 4 or 5 bits per digit (that was hell). Later there were machines with 9 bit bytes. 8 bits was something that just emerged as a convenient power of two that was in the right order of magnitude for machines of the era.
