A sequence of adjacent bits, usually eight, operated on as a unit by a computer.
[Alteration and blend of BIT3 and BITE.]
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In computer technology, a unit of information made up of bits (often eight bits). The memory capacity of a typical personal computer runs from hundreds of thousands to millions of bytes.
Binary data stored on a computer consisting of a group of eight consecutive bits (binary digits) that usually constitute one character.
Amount of computer memory space needed to store one character, which is normally 8 bits. A computer with 8-bit bytes can distinguish 2<su>8</su> = 256 different characters. The size of a computer's memory is measured in kilobytes, where 1 kilobyte (K) = 1024 bytes.
[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.
informatics (also octet) 8 bits, though occasionally used for a grouping of 6 or 9 bits. The byte was coined as a term with the IBM ‘360’ computer series in 1964, introducing a modular building block that replaced the varied long words of most earlier machines (and the simple chained characters of its predecessor, the 1401 computer). The growing use of computers for alphanumeric textual material brought a need for a character-sized entity. Initially this employed a 6-bit structure covering the alphabet only in upper case. While 7 bits would have sufficed for the set of typewriter characters, the 8-bit byte had the advantage of holding with reasonable efficiency either one alphanumeric character or two decimal digits, and for the alphanumeric set to be enhanced, all in a machine of compact modular design.
See also kibi-.
| Meaning | Category |
| Binary Yoked Transfer Element | Computing |
| Building Youth Technology Excellence | Community->Educational |
| Group of bits used to encode a single letter, number, or symbol | Governmental->Military |
| Pirhana, Inc. | Business->NASDAQ Symbols |
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In computer language, a group of eight bits is a byte.
Tutor's tip: You can "bite" (cut into with teeth) into a "bite" (morsel or snack) to eat near the "bight" (bend or curve), but only a computer has a "byte" (unit of computer memory).
| Quantities of bytes | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SI prefixes | Historical use | Binary prefixes | |||
| Symbol (name) |
Value | Symbol | Value | Symbol (name) |
Value |
| kB (kilobyte) | 10001 = 103 | KB | 10241 = 210 | KiB (kibibyte) | 210 |
| MB (megabyte) | 10002 = 106 | MB | 10242 = 220 | MiB (mebibyte) | 220 |
| GB (gigabyte) | 10003 = 109 | GB | 10243 = 230 | GiB (gibibyte) | 230 |
| TB (terabyte) | 10004 = 1012 | TB | 10244 = 240 | TiB (tebibyte) | 240 |
| PB (petabyte) | 10005 = 1015 | PB | 10245 = 250 | PiB (pebibyte) | 250 |
| EB (exabyte) | 10006 = 1018 | EB | 10246 = 260 | EiB (exbibyte) | 260 |
| ZB (zettabyte) | 10007 = 1021 | ZB | 10247 = 270 | ZiB (zebibyte) | 270 |
| YB (yottabyte) | 10008 = 1024 | YB | 10248 = 280 | YiB (yobibyte) | 280 |
| Legacy Units |
|
|---|---|
| Unit | Value |
| KB | 210 Bytes = 1024 Bytes |
| MB | 220 Bytes = 1024 KB |
| GB | 230 Bytes = 1024 MB |
| TB | 240 Bytes = 1024 GB |
In computer science a byte (pronounced /baɪt/) 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).
There has been considerable confusion about the meanings of SI prefixes used with the word "byte", such as kilo- (k or K) and mega- (M), as shown in the chart Quantities of bytes. Since computer memory comes in multiples of 2 rather than 10, the industry used binary estimates of the SI-prefixed quantities. Because of the confusion, a contract specifying a quantity of bytes must define what the prefixes mean in terms of the contract (i.e., the alternate binary equivalents or the actual decimal values, or a binary estimate based on the actual values).
A byte is one of the basic integral data types in some programming languages, especially system programming languages.
The word "byte" has numerous closely related meanings:
The term byte was coined by Dr. Werner Buchholz in July 1956, during the early design phase for the IBM Stretch computer.[1][2][3] Originally it was defined in instructions by a 4-bit byte-size field, allowing from one to sixteen bits (the production design reduced this to a 3-bit byte-size field, allowing from one to eight bits in a byte); typical I/O equipment of the period used six-bit units. A fixed eight-bit byte size was later adopted and promulgated as a standard by the System/360. The term "byte" comes from "bite," as in the smallest amount of data a computer could "bite" at once. The spelling change not only reduced the chance of a "bite" being mistaken for a "bit," but also was consistent with the penchant of early computer scientists to make up words and change spellings. However, back in the 1960s, the luminaries at IBM Education Department in the UK were teaching that a bit was a Binary digIT and a byte was a BinarY TuplE (from n-tuple, i.e. [quin]tuple, [sex]tuple, [sep]tuple, [oc]tuple ...), turning "byte" into a backronym.[citation needed] A byte was also often referred to as "an 8-bit byte", reinforcing the notion that it was a tuple of n bits, and that other sizes were possible.
char integral data type must contain at least 8 bits
(clause 5.2.4.2.1), a byte in C is at least capable of holding 256 different values (signed or unsigned char doesn't
matter). Java's primitive byte data type is always defined as
consisting of 8 bits and being a signed data type, holding values from -128 to 127.Early microprocessors, such as Intel 8008 (the direct predecessor of the 8080, and then
8086) could perform a small number of operations on
Following "bit," "byte," and "nybble," there have been some analogical attempts to construct unambiguous terms for bit blocks of other sizes.[4] All of these are strictly jargon, not techspeak, and not very common.
IEEE 1541 and Metric-Interchange-Format specify "B" as the symbol for byte (e.g. MB means megabyte), whilst IEC 60027 seems silent on the subject. Furthermore, B means bel (see decibel), another (logarithmic) unit used in the same field. The use of B to stand for bel is consistent with the metric system convention that capitalized symbols are for units named after a person (in this case Alexander Graham Bell); usage of a capital B to stand for byte is not consistent with this convention. The unit symbol "kb" with a lowercase "b" is also commonly understood to stand for "kilobyte."
IEEE 1541 specifies "b" as the symbol for bit; however the IEC 60027 and Metric-Interchange-Format specify "bit" (e.g. Mbit for megabit) for the symbol, achieving maximum disambiguation from byte.
"b" vs. "B" confusion seems to be common enough to have inspired the creation of a dedicated website b is not B.
French-speaking countries sometimes use an uppercase "o" for "octet". This is not allowed in SI because of the risk of confusion with the zero and the convention that capitals are reserved for unit names derived from proper names, e.g., A=ampere, J=joule; s=second, m=metre.
Lowercase "o" for "octet" is a commonly used symbol in several non-English-speaking countries, and is also used with metric prefixes (for example, "ko" and "Mo").
The prefixes used for byte measurements are usually the same as the SI prefixes used for other measurements, but have slightly different values. The former are based on powers of 1,024 (210), a convenient binary number, while the SI prefixes are based on powers of 1,000 (103), a convenient decimal number. The table below illustrates these differences. See binary prefix for further discussion.
| Prefix | Name | SI Meaning | Binary meaning | Size difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| K or k | kilo | 103 = 10001 | 210 = 10241 | 2.40% |
| M | mega | 106 = 10002 | 220 = 10242 | 4.86% |
| G | giga | 109 = 10003 | 230 = 10243 | 7.37% |
| T | tera | 1012 = 10004 | 240 = 10244 | 9.95% |
| P | peta | 1015 = 10005 | 250 = 10245 | 12.59% |
| E | exa | 1018 = 10006 | 260 = 10246 | 15.29% |
Note that since 1998, the IEC, then the IEEE has normalized a new model describing binary prefixes avoiding consumer confusion between bytes & bits:
| Prefix | Name | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kibi | binary kilo | 1 kibibyte (KiB) | 210 bytes | 1024 bytes |
| Mebi | binary mega | 1 Mebibyte (MiB) | 220 bytes | 1024 KiB |
| Gibi | binary giga | 1 Gibibyte (GiB) | 230 bytes | 1024 MiB |
| Tebi | binary tera | 1 Tebibyte (TiB) | 240 bytes | 1024 GiB |
| Pebi | binary peta | 1 Pebibyte (PiB) | 250 bytes | 1024 TiB |
| Exbi | binary exa | 1 Exbibyte (EiB) | 260 bytes | 1024 PiB |
Fractional information is usually measured in bits,
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Nederlands (Dutch)
byte (computer)
Français (French)
n. - (Comput) octet, bit, multiplet
Deutsch (German)
n. - (EDV) Byte
Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - (Η/Υ) μπάιτ, ψηφιολέξη (οκτάδα δυαδικών ψηφίων)
Português (Portuguese)
n. - unidade (f) de informação em computadores equivalente a oito bits
Español (Spanish)
n. - byte, octeto
Svenska (Swedish)
n. - bitgrupp, byte (data)
中文(简体) (Chinese (Simplified))
字节
中文(繁體) (Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 位元組
العربيه (Arabic)
(الاسم) وحدة أرقام ثنائيه تمثل حرف أو رقم في الكومبيوتر
עברית (Hebrew)
n. - קבוצת ביטים המייצגת תו אחד במחשב, בית (במחשבים), בייט
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Some good "byte" pages on the web:
Math mathworld.wolfram.com |
| K-byte 512mb Pc2700 Ddr Memory |
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