How many characters can an 8-bit code represent?

An 8-bit code can represent a total of 256 different values or characters. This is calculated based on the number of unique combinations that can be formed with 8 bits, where each bit can be either 0 or 1. The formula to determine the number of combinations is 2 raised to the power of the number of bits. In this case, it is 2^8, which equals 256.

This means that with each of the 8 bits able to be in two different states (0 or 1), you can create combinations ranging from 00000000 (which represents the decimal value 0) to 11111111 (which represents the decimal value 255). Therefore, the total number of distinct values that can be represented is from 0 to 255, resulting in a total of 256 different characters or values.