byte
n. basic data unit comprised of 8 bits (Computers) | ||||
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Bytes definition was found in categories: Computer & Internet(3) Language, Idioms & Slang(3) Entertainment & Music(1) Encyclopedia(1)
Bytes Definition from Computer & Internet Dictionaries & Glossaries
| FOLDOC |
byte
<unit> /bi:t/ (B) A component in the machine data hierarchy usually larger than a bit and smaller than a word; now most often eight bits and the smallest addressable unit of storage. A byte typically holds one character.
A byte may be 9 bits on 36-bit computers. Some older architectures used "byte" for quantities of 6 or 7 bits, and the PDP-10 and IBM 7030 supported "bytes" that were actually bit-fields of 1 to 36 (or 64) bits! These usages are now obsolete, and even 9-bit bytes have become rare in the general trend toward power-of-2 word sizes.
The term was coined by Werner Buchholz in 1956 during the early design phase for the IBM Stretch computer. It was a mutation of the word "bite" intended to avoid confusion with "bit". In 1962 he described it as "a group of bits used to encode a character, or the number of bits transmitted in parallel to and from input-output units". The move to an 8-bit byte happened in late 1956, and this size was later adopted and promulgated as a standard by the System/360 operating system (announced April 1964).
James S. Jones jsjones@graceland.edu adds:
I am sure I read in a mid-1970's brochure by IBM that outlined the history of computers that BYTE was an acronym that stood for "Bit asYnchronous Transmission E__?__" which related to width of the bus between the Stretch CPU and its CRT-memory (prior to Core).
Terry Carr bear@mich.com says:
In the early days IBM taught that a series of bits transferred together (like so many yoked oxen) formed a Binary Yoked Transfer Element (BYTE).
[True origin? First 8-bit byte architecture?]
See also nibble, octet.
[Jargon File]
(2003-09-21)
| Glossary of the European Information Society |
Bits/Bytes
The smallest discrete elements in a binary system: eight bits comprise one byte.
The smallest discrete elements in a binary system: eight bits comprise one byte.
| Jensen's Technology Glossary |
Bytes
Grouping of eight bits. While a bit can assume only two states, 0 and 1, a byte can store from 0 up to 255 different states. Most of the time a character is stored in a byte. Therefore, a byte can store up to 255 different characters. The standard ASCII character set consists of 128 characters; the additional characters generally used in PC software brings the total number of characters up to 255.
Grouping of eight bits. While a bit can assume only two states, 0 and 1, a byte can store from 0 up to 255 different states. Most of the time a character is stored in a byte. Therefore, a byte can store up to 255 different characters. The standard ASCII character set consists of 128 characters; the additional characters generally used in PC software brings the total number of characters up to 255.
Bytes Definition from Language, Idioms & Slang Dictionaries & Glossaries
| WordNet 2.0 |
byte
Noun
1. a sequence of 8 bits (enough to represent one character of alphanumeric data) processed as a single unit of information
(hypernym) computer memory unit
(part-holonym) word
(part-meronym) bit
Noun
1. a sequence of 8 bits (enough to represent one character of alphanumeric data) processed as a single unit of information
(hypernym) computer memory unit
(part-holonym) word
(part-meronym) bit
| Anagram |
bytes
betsy
betsy
| hEnglish - advanced version |
Bytes Definition from Entertainment & Music Dictionaries & Glossaries
| Guitar Glossary |
Byte
A group of eight adjacent bits recognized as a single unit. A byte can represent characters, numbers, punctuation or any special codes. Bytes are to computers what words are to humans.
A group of eight adjacent bits recognized as a single unit. A byte can represent characters, numbers, punctuation or any special codes. Bytes are to computers what words are to humans.
Bytes Definition from Encyclopedia Dictionaries & Glossaries
| Wikipedia English - The Free Encyclopedia |
Byte
In computer science a byte (pronounced ) is a unit of measurement of information storage, most often consisting of eight bits. In many computer architectures it is a unit of memory addressing.
Originally, a byte was a small group of bits of a size convenient for data such as a single character from a Western character set. Its size was generally determined by the number of possible characters in the supported character set and was chosen to be a submultiple of the computer's word size; historically, bytes have ranged from five to twelve bits. The popularity of IBM's System/360 architecture starting in the 1960s and the explosion of microcomputers based on 8-bit microprocessors in the 1980s has made eight bits by far the most common size for a byte. The term octet is widely used as a more precise synonym where ambiguity is undesirable (for example, in protocol definitions).
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Byte (magazine)
Byte magazine was an influential microcomputer magazine in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, because of its wide-ranging editorial coverage. Whereas many magazines from the mid-1980s had been dedicated to the Wintel platform or the Mac, mostly from a business user's perspective, Byte covered developments in the entire field of "small computers and software", and sometimes included in-depth features on other computing fields as well, such as supercomputers and high-reliability computing.
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