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For example, the PDP-10 byte pointer contained the size of the byte in bits (allowing different-sized bytes to be accessed), the bit position of the byte within the word, and the word address of the data. Instructions could automatically adjust the pointer to the next byte on, for example, load and deposit (store) operations.
Frequently, half, full, double and quadruple words consist of a number of bytes which is a low power of two. A string of four bits is usually a nibble . In information theory , one bit is the information entropy of a random binary variable that is 0 or 1 with equal probability, [ 3 ] or the information that is gained when the value of such a ...
The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. 1 byte (B) = 8 bits (bit).Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer [1] [2] and for this reason it is the smallest addressable unit of memory in many computer architectures.
A 64-bit float is sometimes called a "real64" or a "double", meaning "double-precision floating-point value". The relation between numbers and bit patterns is chosen for convenience in computer manipulation; eight bytes stored in computer memory may represent a 64-bit real, two 32-bit reals, or four signed or unsigned integers, or some other ...
The meanings of terms derived from word, such as longword, doubleword, quadword, and halfword, also vary with the CPU and OS. [7] Practically all new desktop processors are capable of using 64-bit words, though embedded processors with 8- and 16-bit word size are still common. The 36-bit word length was common in the early days of computers.
The PDP-10 uses word addressing with 36-bit words and 18-bit addresses. Most Cray supercomputers from the 1980s and 1990s use word addressing with 64-bit words. The Cray-1 and Cray X-MP use 24-bit addresses, while most others use 32-bit addresses. The Cray X1 uses byte addressing with 64-bit addresses. It does not directly support memory ...
1 byte 8 bits Byte, octet, minimum size of char in C99( see limits.h CHAR_BIT) −128 to +127 0 to 255 2 bytes 16 bits x86 word, minimum size of short and int in C −32,768 to +32,767 0 to 65,535 4 bytes 32 bits x86 double word, minimum size of long in C, actual size of int for most modern C compilers, [8] pointer for IA-32-compatible processors
– equivalent to 1 "word" on 32-bit processors, including those for the Apple Macintosh, Pentium-based PC, PlayStation, GameCube, Xbox, Wii. 36 bits – size of word on Univac 1100-series computers and Digital Equipment Corporation's PDP-10 56 bits (7 bytes) – cipher strength of the DES encryption standard 2 6: 64 bits (8 bytes)