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byte: /bi:t/, n. [techspeak] A unit of memory or data equal to the amount used to
represent one character; on modern architectures this is invariably 8 bits.
Some older architectures used byte
for quantities of 6, 7, or (especially) 9 bits, and the PDP-10 supported
bytes that were actually bitfields of
1 to 36 bits! These usages are now obsolete, killed off by universal
adoption of power-of-2 word sizes. Historical note: The term was coined by Werner Buchholz in 1956
during the early design phase for the IBM Stretch computer; originally it
was described as 1 to 6 bits (typical I/O equipment of the period used
6-bit chunks of information). 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. The word was coined by mutating the word ‘bite’ so
it would not be accidentally misspelled as bit. See
also nybble.
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