– “bits” as in 8-bit, 16-bit art and gaming systems
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The “bits” of a game system mainly represents how big an integer (whole numbers, positive or negative) can be that it can do math on at once. The NES was 8-bit, and could add two number together as long as they were 8 bits long. If you wanted to add 16 bits together you needed to use 2 CPU instructions to do it. Memory access sometimes comes into play as well especially in more modern systems, but early CPUs often had different rules about memory access and arithmetic input sizes.
In terms of graphics, they weren’t directly related. Older systems had more primitive graphics processors with more limits. The CPU was often a separate piece of hardware from the graphics processor. Said processor built the screen image pixel by pixel based on sprite sheets and a listing of what went where, and a grid of tiles for the background. The limits were usually of how many tiles were allowed in a given area and how many unique colours were allowed within a single tile.
So saying graphics looked 8-bit is really just saying that game systems at that time tended to have these graphical limits. The next generation would have improvements across the board, for the CPU, the graphics and the audio. And repeat for each iteration.
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