byte

adjacent bits processed by a computer
Not to be confused with:bight – part of a rope; bend in the shore; gulfbite – cut or wound with the teeth: Does your dog bite?

byte

B0241300 (bīt)n.1. A unit of data equal to eight bits. Computer memory is often expressed in megabytes or gigabytes.2. A set of bits constituting the smallest unit of addressable memory in a given computer, typically eight bits.

[Alteration and blend of bit and bite.]

byte

(baɪt) n1. (Communications & Information) a group of bits, usually eight, processed as a single unit of data2. (Communications & Information) the storage space in a memory or other storage device that is allocated to such a group of bits3. (Linguistics) a subdivision of a word[C20: probably a blend of bit⁴ + bite]

byte

(baɪt)
n. a group of adjacent bits, usu. eight, processed by a computer as a unit. [1959; orig. uncertain]

byte

(bīt) A sequence of adjacent bits operated on as a unit by a computer. A byte usually consists of eight bits. Amounts of computer memory are often expressed in terms of megabytes (1,048,576 bytes) or gigabytes (1,073,741,824 bytes).Usage The word bit is short for binary digit. A bit consists of one of two values, usually 0 or 1. Computers use bits because their system of counting is based on two options: switches on a microchip that are either on or off. Thus, a computer counts to seven in bits as follows: 0, 1, 10 [2], 11 [3], 100 [4], 101 [5], 110 [6], 111 [7]. Notice that the higher you count, the more adjacent bits you need to represent the number. For example, it requires two adjacent bits to count from 0 to 3, and it takes three adjacent bits to count from 0 to 7. A sequence of bits can represent not just numbers, but other kinds of data, such as the letters and symbols on a keyboard. The sequence of 0s and 1s that make up data are usually counted in groups of 8, and these groups of 8 bits are called bytes. The word byte is short for binary digit eight. To transmit one keystroke on a typical keyboard requires one byte of information (or 8 bits). To transmit the three-letter word the requires three bytes of information (or 24 bits).

byte

A unit of eight bits. Computer memories are measured in terms of thousands of bytes.

Thesaurus

Noun

byte - a sequence of 8 bits (enough to represent one character of alphanumeric data) processed as a single unit of informationcomputer memory unit - a unit for measuring computer memorybit - a unit of measurement of information (from binary + digit); the amount of information in a system having two equiprobable states; "there are 8 bits in a byte"nibble, nybble - a small byteword - a word is a string of bits stored in computer memory; "large computers use words up to 64 bits long"

Translations

字节

byte

(bait) noun a unit of memory in a computer equal to eight bits. 字节

byte

[bīt] (computer science) A sequence of adjacent binary digits operated upon as a unit in a computer and usually shorter than a word.

Byte

(publication)A popular computing magazine.

http://byte.com.

byte

(unit)/bi:t/ (B) A component in the machine data hierarchylarger than a bit and usually smaller than a word; nownearly always eight bits and the smallest addressable unit ofstorage. A byte typically holds one character.

A byte may be 9 bits on 36-bit computers. Some olderarchitectures used "byte" for quantities of 6 or 7 bits, andthe PDP-10 and IBM 7030 supported "bytes" that were actuallybit-fields of 1 to 36 (or 64) bits! These usages are nowobsolete, and even 9-bit bytes have become rare in the generaltrend toward power-of-2 word sizes.

The term was coined by Werner Buchholz in 1956 during theearly design phase for the IBM Stretch computer. It was amutation of the word "bite" intended to avoid confusion with"bit". In 1962 he described it as "a group of bits used toencode a character, or the number of bits transmitted inparallel to and from input-output units". The move to an8-bit byte happened in late 1956, and this size was lateradopted and promulgated as a standard by the System/360operating system (announced April 1964).

James S. Jones adds:

I am sure I read in a mid-1970's brochure by IBM that outlinedthe history of computers that BYTE was an acronym that stoodfor "Bit asYnchronous Transmission E..?" which related towidth of the bus between the Stretch CPU and its CRT-memory(prior to Core).

Terry Carr says:

In the early days IBM taught that a series of bits transferredtogether (like so many yoked oxen) formed a Binary YokedTransfer Element (BYTE).

See also nibble, octet.

byte

(BinarY TablE) The common unit of computer storage from desktop computer to mainframe. It is made up of eight binary digits (bits). A ninth bit may be used in the memory (RAM) circuits as a parity bit for error checking. See parity checking.

A byte holds one alphabetic character such as the letter A, a dollar sign or decimal point. For numeric data, one byte holds one decimal digit (0-9), two "packed decimal" digits (00-99) or a binary number from 0 to 255. See space/time.

From Bite to Byte
IBM coined the term in the mid-1950s to mean the smallest addressable group of bits in a computer, which was originally not eight. The first spelling of the word was "bite," but the y was added to avoid misspelling between "bit" and "bite."

Byte Specifications

Drives and memory (RAM) are rated in bytes. For example, a 512-gigabyte (512GB) drive stores 512 billion characters of program instructions and data permanently, while eight gigabytes (8GBs) of RAM holds eight billion temporarily. The first hard drives in early personal computers held 5MB, and RAM was 64K. See memory and file size.

Eight Bits Make Up One Byte

There are eight binary digits (bits) in a byte, but there can also be nine bits per byte in RAM cells that include error correction (see parity checking).

The Bytes Got Really Small!

In 1991, this hard drive held 670 megabytes. By 2018, the microSD flash memory card (arrow) had 750 times as much storage. The disk weighs 17 pounds in its case (not shown), and the flash memory card weighs half a gram. See microSD.

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Words related to byte

noun a sequence of 8 bits (enough to represent one character of alphanumeric data) processed as a single unit of information

Related Words