Difference between revisions of "Byte"
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| − | In [[computing]], the '''byte''' (/ˈbaɪt/) is a [[Units of information|unit]] of [[digital | + | In [[computing]], the '''byte''' (/ˈbaɪt/) is a [[Units of information|unit]] of [[digital data]] that most commonly consists of eight [[Bit|bits]]. |
== Description == | == Description == | ||
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* [[Computer]] | * [[Computer]] | ||
* [[Computer architecture]] | * [[Computer architecture]] | ||
| + | * [[Computer science]] | ||
* [[Computing]] | * [[Computing]] | ||
| − | * [[ | + | * [[Data (computing)]] |
| + | * [[Digital data]] | ||
| + | * [[Information]] | ||
| + | * [[Unit of information]] | ||
== External links == | == External links == | ||
* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte Byte] @ Wikipedia | * [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte Byte] @ Wikipedia | ||
Revision as of 15:43, 5 September 2015
In computing, the byte (/ˈbaɪt/) is a unit of digital data that most commonly consists of eight bits.
Description
Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a [[computer], and for this reason it is the smallest addressable unit of Computer memory in many computer architectures.
Byte size
The size of the byte has historically been hardware dependent and no definitive standards existed that mandated the size.
The de facto standard of eight bits is a convenient power of two permitting the values 0 through 255 for one byte.
The international standard IEC 80000-13 codified this common meaning.
Many types of applications use information representable in eight or fewer bits and processor designers optimize for this common usage.
Eight-bit bytes ubiquitous
The popularity of major commercial computing architectures has aided in the ubiquitous acceptance of the 8-bit size.
Octet
The unit octet was defined to explicitly denote a sequence of 8 bits because of the ambiguity associated at the time with the byte.
The usage of the term octad(e) for 8 bits is no longer common today.
See also
- Address space
- Bit
- Computer
- Computer architecture
- Computer science
- Computing
- Data (computing)
- Digital data
- Information
- Unit of information
External links
- Byte @ Wikipedia
