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The term bit length is technical shorthand for this measure. For example, computer processors are often designed to process data grouped into words of a given length of bits (8 bit, 16 bit, 32 bit, 64 bit, etc.). The bit length of each word defines, for one thing, how many memory locations can be independently addressed by the processor.
In serial data transmission, a common format is 7 data bits, an even parity bit, and one or two stop bits. That format accommodates all the 7-bit ASCII characters in an 8-bit byte. Other formats are possible; 8 bits of data plus a parity bit can convey all 8-bit byte values.
The term 64-bit also describes a generation of computers in which 64-bit processors are the norm. 64 bits is a word size that defines certain classes of computer architecture, buses, memory, and CPUs and, by extension, the software that runs on them. 64-bit CPUs have been used in supercomputers since the 1970s (Cray-1, 1975) and in reduced ...
The efficiency of addressing of memory depends on the bit size of the bus used for addresses – the more bits used, the more addresses are available to the computer. For example, an 8-bit-byte-addressable machine with a 20-bit address bus (e.g. Intel 8086) can address 2 20 (1,048,576) memory locations, or one MiB of memory, while a 32-bit bus ...
In computer architecture, 128-bit integers, memory addresses, or other data units are those that are 128 bits (16 octets) wide. Also, 128-bit central processing unit (CPU) and arithmetic logic unit (ALU) architectures are those that are based on registers, address buses, or data buses of that size. General home computing and gaming utility ...
In computer architecture, 32-bit computing refers to computer systems with a processor, memory, and other major system components that operate on data in 32- bit units. [1][2] Compared to smaller bit widths, 32-bit computers can perform large calculations more efficiently and process more data per clock cycle.
However, "client" versions of 32-bit Windows (Windows XP SP2 and later, Windows Vista, Windows 7) limit physical address space to the first 4 GB for driver compatibility [16] even though these versions do run in PAE mode if NX support is enabled. Windows 8 and later releases will only run on processors which support PAE, in addition to NX and SSE2.
Historically, a byte was the number of bits used to encode a character of text in the computer, which depended on computer hardware architecture, but today it almost always means eight bits – that is, an octet. An 8-bit byte can represent 256 (2 8) distinct values, such as non-negative integers from 0 to 255, or signed integers from −128 to ...