Byte - Wikipedia

1/20/22, 11:39 PM Byte - Wikipedia
Byte
The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly byte
consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of Unit unit derived from bit
bits used to encode a single character of text in a system
computer[1][2] and for this reason it is the smallest addressable Unit of digital information, data
unit of memory in many computer architectures. To
size
disambiguate arbitrarily sized bytes from the common 8-bit
definition, network protocol documents such as The Internet Symbol B or o
Protocol (RFC 791 (https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc7
91)) refer to an 8-bit byte as an octet.[3] Those bits in an octet are usually counted with numbering
from 0 to 7 or 7 to 0 depending on the bit endianness. The first bit is number 0, making the eighth
bit number 7.
The size of the byte has historically been hardware-dependent and no definitive standards existed
that mandated the size. Sizes from 1 to 48 bits have been used.[4][5][6][7] The six-bit character code
was an often-used implementation in early encoding systems, and computers using six-bit and
nine-bit bytes were common in the 1960s. These systems often had memory words of 12, 18, 24,
30, 36, 48, or 60 bits, corresponding to 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, or 10 six-bit bytes. In this era, bit groupings
in the instruction stream were often referred to as syllables[a] or slab, before the term byte became
common.
The modern de facto standard of eight bits, as documented in ISO/IEC 2382-1:1993, is a

convenient power of two permitting the binary-encoded values 0 through 255 for one byte—2 to
the power 8 is 256.[8] The international standard IEC 80000-13 codified this common meaning.
Many types of applications use information representable in eight or fewer bits and processor
designers commonly optimize for this usage. The popularity of major commercial computing
architectures has aided in the ubiquitous acceptance of the 8-bit byte.[9] Modern architectures
typically use 32- or 64-bit words, built of four or eight bytes, respectively.
The unit symbol for the byte was designated as the upper-case letter B by the International
Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
(IEEE).[10] Internationally, the unit octet, symbol o, explicitly defines a sequence of eight bits,
eliminating the potential ambiguity of the term "byte".[11][12]
Contents
Etymology and history
Unit symbol
Multiple-byte units
Units based on powers of 10
Parochial units
History of the conflicting definitions
Modern standard definitions
Lawsuits over definition
Practical examples
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte#Multiple-byte_units 1/14
Common uses
See also
Notes
References
Further reading
Etymology and history

The term byte was coined by Werner Buchholz in June 1956,[4][13][14][b] during the early design
phase for the IBM Stretch[15][16][1][13][14][17][18] computer, which had addressing to the bit and
variable field length (VFL) instructions with a byte size encoded in the instruction.[13]
It is a
deliberate respelling of bite to avoid accidental mutation to bit.[1][13][19][c]
Another origin of byte for bit groups smaller than a computer's word size, and in particular groups
of four bits, is on record by Louis G. Dooley, who claimed he coined the term while working with
Jules Schwartz and Dick Beeler on an air defense system called SAGE at MIT Lincoln Laboratory
in 1956 or 1957, which was jointly developed by Rand, MIT, and IBM.[20][21] Later on, Schwartz's
language JOVIAL actually used the term, but the author recalled vaguely that it was derived from
AN/FSQ-31.[22][21]
Early computers used a variety of four-bit binary-coded decimal (BCD) representations and the
six-bit codes for printable graphic patterns common in the U.S. Army (FIELDATA) and Navy.
These representations included alphanumeric characters and special graphical symbols. These sets
were expanded in 1963 to seven bits of coding, called the American Standard Code for Information
Interchange (ASCII) as the Federal Information Processing Standard, which replaced the
incompatible teleprinter codes in use by different branches of the U.S. government and
universities during the 1960s. ASCII included the distinction of upper- and lowercase alphabets
and a set of control characters to facilitate the transmission of written language as well as printing
device functions, such as page advance and line feed, and the physical or logical control of data
flow over the transmission media.[18] During the early 1960s, while also active in ASCII
standardization, IBM simultaneously introduced in its product line of System/360 the eight-bit
Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code (EBCDIC), an expansion of their six-bit binary-
coded decimal (BCDIC) representations[d] used in earlier card punches.[23]
The prominence of the
System/360 led to the ubiquitous adoption of the eight-bit storage size,[18][16][13] while in detail
the EBCDIC and ASCII encoding schemes are different.
In the early 1960s, AT&T introduced digital telephony on long-distance trunk lines. These used the
eight-bit μ-law encoding. This large investment promised to reduce transmission costs for eight-
bit data.
The development of eight-bit microprocessors in the 1970s popularized this storage size.
Microprocessors such as the Intel 8008, the direct predecessor of the 8080 and the 8086, used in
early personal computers, could also perform a small number of operations on the four-bit pairs in
a byte, such as the decimal-add-adjust (DAA) instruction. A four-bit quantity is often called a
nibble, also nybble, which is conveniently represented by a single hexadecimal digit.
The term octet is used to unambiguously specify a size of eight bits.[18][12] It is used extensively in
protocol definitions.
Historically, the term octad or octade was used to denote eight bits as well at least in Western
Europe;[24][25] however, this usage is no longer common. The exact origin of the term is unclear,
but it can be found in British, Dutch, and German sources of the 1960s and 1970s, and throughout
the documentation of Philips mainframe computers.
Unit symbol
The unit symbol for the byte is specified in IEC 80000-13, IEEE 1541 and the Metric Interchange
Format[10] as the upper-case character B.
In the International System of Quantities (ISQ), B is the symbol of the bel, a unit of logarithmic
power ratio named after Alexander Graham Bell, creating a conflict with the IEC specification.
However, little danger of confusion exists, because the bel is a rarely used unit. It is used primarily
in its decadic fraction, the decibel (dB), for signal strength and sound pressure level
measurements, while a unit for one-tenth of a byte, the decibyte, and other fractions, are only used
in derived units, such as transmission rates.
The lowercase letter o for octet is defined as the symbol for octet in IEC 80000-13 and is
commonly used in languages such as French[26] and Romanian, and is also combined with metric
prefixes for multiples, for example ko and Mo.
Multiple-byte units
More than one system exists to define Multiple-byte units
larger units based on the byte. Some Decimal Binary
systems are based on powers of 10; other Value Metric Value IEC Legacy
systems are based on powers of 2.
Nomenclature for these systems has been 1000 kB kilobyte 1024 KiB kibibyte KB kilobyte
the subject of confusion. Systems based on 10002 MB megabyte 10242 MiB mebibyte MB megabyte
powers of 10 reliably use standard SI 10003 GB gigabyte 10243 GiB gibibyte GB gigabyte
prefixes (kilo, mega, giga, ...) and their 10004 TB terabyte 10244 TiB tebibyte TB terabyte
corresponding symbols (k, M, G, ...). 10005 PB petabyte 10245 PiB pebibyte –
Systems based on powers of 2, however, 10006 EB exabyte 10246 EiB exbibyte –
might use binary prefixes (kibi, mebi, 10007 ZB zettabyte 10247 ZiB zebibyte –
gibi, ...) and their corresponding symbols 10008 YB yottabyte 10248 YiB yobibyte –
(Ki, Mi, Gi, ...) or they might use the
Orders of magnitude of data
prefixes K, M, and G, creating ambiguity.
While the numerical difference between the decimal and binary interpretations is relatively small
for the kilobyte (about 2% smaller than the kibibyte), the systems deviate increasingly as units
grow larger (the relative deviation grows by 2.4% for each three orders of magnitude). For
example, a power-of-10-based yottabyte is about 17% smaller than power-of-2-based yobibyte.
Definition of prefixes using powers of 10—in which 1 kilobyte (symbol kB) is defined to equal
1,000 bytes—is recommended by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC).[27] The
IEC standard defines eight such multiples, up to 1 yottabyte (YB), equal to 10008 bytes.
This definition is most commonly used for data-rate units in computer networks, internal bus,
hard drive and flash media transfer speeds, and for the capacities of most storage media,
particularly hard drives,[28] flash-based storage,[29] and DVDs. Operating systems that use this
definition include macOS,[30] iOS,[30] Ubuntu,[31] and Debian.[32] It is also consistent with the
other uses of the SI prefixes in computing, such as CPU clock speeds or measures of performance.
A system of units based on powers of 2 in which 1 kibibyte (KiB) is equal to 1,024 (i.e., 210) bytes is
defined by international standard IEC 80000-13 and is supported by national and international
standards bodies (BIPM, IEC, NIST). The IEC standard defines eight such multiples, up to 1
yobibyte (YiB), equal to 10248 bytes.
An alternate system of nomenclature for the same units (referred to here as the customary
convention), in which 1 kilobyte (KB) is equal to 1,024 bytes,[33][34][35] 1 megabyte (MB) is equal
to 10242 bytes and 1 gigabyte (GB) is equal to 10243 bytes is mentioned by a 1990s JEDEC
standard. Only the first three multiples (up to GB) are mentioned by the JEDEC standard, which
makes no mention of TB and larger. The customary convention is used by the Microsoft Windows
operating system[36] and random-access memory capacity, such as main memory and CPU cache
size, and in marketing and billing by telecommunication companies, such as Vodafone,[37]
AT&T,[38] Orange[39] and Telstra.[40]
This defintion was used by Apple Inc. operating systems prior to Mac OS X Snow Leopard and iOS
10 before switching to units based on powers of 10.[30]
Parochial units
Various computer vendors have coined terms for data of various sizes, sometimes with different
sizes for the same term even within a single vendor. These terms include double word, half word,
long word, quad word, slab, superword and syllable. There are also informal terms. e.g., half byte
and nybble for 4 bits, octal K for 10008.
History of the conflicting definitions
Contemporary[e] computer memory has a binary

architecture making a definition of memory units
based on powers of 2 most practical. The use of the
metric prefix kilo for binary multiples arose as a
convenience, because 1,024 is approximately 1,000.[41]
This definition was popular in early decades of
personal computing, with products like the Tandon
51⁄4-inch DD floppy format (holding 368,640 bytes)
being advertised as "360 KB", following the 1,024-byte
convention. It was not universal, however. The Shugart
SA-400 51⁄4-inch floppy disk held 109,375 bytes
unformatted,[42] and was advertised as "110 Kbyte", Percentage difference between decimal and
binary interpretations of the unit prefixes
using the 1000 convention.[43] Likewise, the 8-inch
grows with increasing storage size
DEC RX01 floppy (1975) held 256,256 bytes formatted,
and was advertised as "256k".[44] Other disks were
advertised using a mixture of the two definitions:
notably, 31⁄2-inch HD disks advertised as "1.44 MB" in fact have a capacity of 1,440 KiB, the
equivalent of 1.47 MB or 1.41 MiB.
In 1995, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry's (IUPAC) Interdivisional
Committee on Nomenclature and Symbols attempted to resolve this ambiguity by proposing a set
of binary prefixes for the powers of 1024, including kibi (kilobinary), mebi (megabinary), and gibi
(gigabinary).[45][46]
In December 1998, the IEC addressed such multiple usages and definitions by adopting the
IUPAC's proposed prefixes (kibi, mebi, gibi, etc.) to unambiguously denote powers of 1024.[47]
Thus one kibibyte (1 KiB) is 10241 bytes = 1024 bytes, one mebibyte (1 MiB) is 10242 bytes =
1048576 bytes, and so on.
In 1999, Donald Knuth suggested calling the kibibyte a "large kilobyte" (KKB).[48]
Modern standard definitions
The IEC adopted the IUPAC proposal and published the standard in January 1999.[49][50] The IEC
prefixes are now part of the International System of Quantities. The IEC further specified that the
kilobyte should only be used to refer to 1,000 bytes.
Lawsuits over definition
Lawsuits arising from alleged consumer confusion over the binary and decimal definitions of
multiples of the byte have generally ended in favor of the manufacturers, with courts holding that
the legal definition of gigabyte or GB is 1 GB = 1,000,000,000 (109) bytes (the decimal definition),
rather than the binary definition (230). Specifically, the United States District Court held that "the
U.S. Congress has deemed the decimal definition of gigabyte to be the 'preferred' one for the
purposes of 'U.S. trade and commerce' [...] The California Legislature has likewise adopted the
decimal system for all 'transactions in this state.'"[51]
Earlier lawsuits had ended in settlement with no court ruling on the question, such as a lawsuit
against drive manufacturer Western Digital.[52][53] Western Digital settled the challenge and
added explicit disclaimers to products that the usable capacity may differ from the advertised
capacity.[52] Seagate was sued on similar grounds and also settled.[52][54]
Practical examples
Unit Approximate equivalent

byte a basic latin character.
text of "Jabberwocky"
kilobyte
a typical favicon
megabyte text of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire[55]
about half an hour of video[56]

gigabyte
CD-quality audio of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
the largest consumer hard drive in 2007[57]

terabyte 1080p 4:3 video of Avatar: The Last Airbender television series in its
entirety[f]
petabyte 2000 years of MP3-encoded music[58]
exabyte global monthly Internet traffic in 2004[59]
zettabyte global yearly Internet traffic in 2016[60]
Common uses
Many programming languages define the data type byte.
The C and C++ programming languages define byte as an "addressable unit of data storage large
enough to hold any member of the basic character set of the execution environment" (clause 3.6
of the C standard). The C standard requires that the integral data type unsigned char must hold at
least 256 different values, and is represented by at least eight bits (clause 5.2.4.2.1). Various
implementations of C and C++ reserve 8, 9, 16, 32, or 36 bits for the storage of a byte.[61][62][g] In
addition, the C and C++ standards require that there are no gaps between two bytes. This means
every bit in memory is part of a byte.[63]
Java's primitive data type byte is defined as eight bits. It is a signed data type, holding values from
−128 to 127.
.NET programming languages, such as C#, define byte as an unsigned type, and the sbyte as a
signed data type, holding values from 0 to 255, and −128 to 127, respectively.
In data transmission systems, the byte is used as a contiguous sequence of bits in a serial data
stream, representing the smallest distinguished unit of data. A transmission unit might
additionally include start bits, stop bits, and parity bits, and thus its size may vary from seven to
twelve bits to contain a single seven-bit ASCII code.[64]
See also
Data
Data hierarchy
Nibble
Octet (computing)
Primitive data type
Tryte
Word (computer architecture)
Notes
a. The term syllable was used for bytes containing instructions or constituents of instructions, not
for data bytes.
b. Many sources erroneously indicate a birthday of the term byte in July 1956, but Werner
Buchholz claimed that the term would have been coined in June 1956. In fact, the earliest
document supporting this dates from 1956-06-11. Buchholz stated that the transition to 8-bit
bytes was conceived in August 1956, but the earliest document found using this notion dates
from September 1956.
c. Some later machines, e.g., Burroughs B1700, CDC 3600, DEC PDP-6, DEC PDP-10 had the
ability to operate on arbitrary bytes no larger than the word size.
d. There was more than one BCD code page.
e. Through the 1970s there were machines with decimal architectures.
f. Video is encoded at a bitrate of 27.80 Mbit/s, with a runtime of 1,403 min[65] (84180 seconds)
resulting in an approximate size of ~0.2925 terabytes
g. The actual number of bits in a particular implementation is documented as CHAR_BIT as
implemented in the file limits.h.
References
1. Blaauw, Gerrit Anne; Brooks, Jr., Frederick Phillips; Buchholz, Werner (1962), "4: Natural Data
Units" (https://web.archive.org/web/20170403014651/http://archive.computerhistory.org/resour
ces/text/IBM/Stretch/pdfs/Buchholz_102636426.pdf) (PDF), in Buchholz, Werner (ed.),
Planning a Computer System – Project Stretch, McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc. / The Maple
Press Company, York, PA., pp. 39–40, LCCN 61-10466 (https://lccn.loc.gov/61-10466),
archived from the original (http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/IBM/Stretch/pdfs/B
uchholz_102636426.pdf) (PDF) on 2017-04-03, retrieved 2017-04-03, "Terms used here to
describe the structure imposed by the machine design, in addition to bit, are listed below.
Byte denotes a group of bits used to encode a character, or the number of bits transmitted in
parallel to and from input-output units. A term other than character is used here because a
given character may be represented in different applications by more than one code, and
different codes may use different numbers of bits (i.e., different byte sizes). In input-output
transmission the grouping of bits may be completely arbitrary and have no relation to actual
characters. (The term is coined from bite, but respelled to avoid accidental mutation to bit.)
A word consists of the number of data bits transmitted in parallel from or to memory in one
memory cycle. Word size is thus defined as a structural property of the memory. (The term
catena was coined for this purpose by the designers of the Bull GAMMA 60 computer.)
Block refers to the number of words transmitted to or from an input-output unit in response to a
single input-output instruction. Block size is a structural property of an input-output unit; it may
have been fixed by the design or left to be varied by the program."
2. Bemer, Robert William (1959), "A proposal for a generalized card code of 256 characters",
Communications of the ACM, 2 (9): 19–23, doi:10.1145/368424.368435 (https://doi.org/10.114
5%2F368424.368435), S2CID 36115735 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:36115735)
3. Postel, J. (September 1981). Internet Protocol DARPA INTERNET PROGRAM PROTOCOL
SPECIFICATION (https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc791#page-43). p. 43.
doi:10.17487/RFC0791 (https://doi.org/10.17487%2FRFC0791). RFC 791 (https://datatracker.i
etf.org/doc/html/rfc791). Retrieved 28 August 2020. "octet An eight bit byte."
4. Buchholz, Werner (1956-06-11). "7. The Shift Matrix" (https://web.archive.org/web/2017040415

2534/http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/IBM/Stretch/pdfs/06-07/102632284.pdf)
(PDF). The Link System. IBM. pp. 5–6. Stretch Memo No. 39G. Archived from the original (htt
p://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/IBM/Stretch/pdfs/06-07/102632284.pdf) (PDF)
on 2017-04-04. Retrieved 2016-04-04. "[…] Most important, from the point of view of editing,
will be the ability to handle any characters or digits, from 1 to 6 bits long.
Figure 2 shows the Shift Matrix to be used to convert a 60-bit word, coming from Memory in
parallel, into characters, or 'bytes' as we have called them, to be sent to the Adder serially. The
60 bits are dumped into magnetic cores on six different levels. Thus, if a 1 comes out of
position 9, it appears in all six cores underneath. Pulsing any diagonal line will send the six bits
stored along that line to the Adder. The Adder may accept all or only some of the bits.
Assume that it is desired to operate on 4 bit decimal digits, starting at the right. The 0-diagonal
is pulsed first, sending out the six bits 0 to 5, of which the Adder accepts only the first four (0–
3). Bits 4 and 5 are ignored. Next, the 4 diagonal is pulsed. This sends out bits 4 to 9, of which
the last two are again ignored, and so on.
It is just as easy to use all six bits in alphanumeric work, or to handle bytes of only one bit for
logical analysis, or to offset the bytes by any number of bits. All this can be done by pulling the
appropriate shift diagonals. An analogous matrix arrangement is used to change from serial to
parallel operation at the output of the adder. […]"
5. 3600 Computer System – Reference Manual (https://web.archive.org/web/20170405154001/ht
tp://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/cdc/3x00/48bit/60021300K_3600_SysRef_Oct66.p
df#) (PDF). K. St. Paul, Minnesota, USA: Control Data Corporation (CDC). 1966-10-11 [1965].
60021300. Archived from the original (http://bitsavers.org/pdf/cdc/3x00/48bit/60021300K_3600
_SysRef_Oct66.pdf) (PDF) on 2017-04-05. Retrieved 2017-04-05. "Byte – A partition of a
computer word." (NB. Discusses 12-bit, 24-bit and 48-bit bytes.)
6. Rao, Thammavaram R. N.; Fujiwara, Eiji (1989). McCluskey, Edward J. (ed.). Error-Control
Coding for Computer Systems. Prentice Hall Series in Computer Engineering (1 ed.).
Englewood Cliffs, NJ, USA: Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-283953-9. LCCN 88-17892 (https://lccn.l
oc.gov/88-17892). (NB. Example of the usage of a code for "4-bit bytes".)
7. Tafel, Hans Jörg (1971). Einführung in die digitale Datenverarbeitung [Introduction to digital
information processing] (in German). Munich: Carl Hanser Verlag. p. 300. ISBN 3-446-10569-
7. "Byte = zusammengehörige Folge von i.a. neun Bits; davon sind acht Datenbits, das neunte
ein Prüfbit" (NB. Defines a byte as a group of typically 9 bits; 8 data bits plus 1 parity bit.)
8. ISO/IEC 2382-1: 1993, Information technology – Vocabulary – Part 1: Fundamental terms.
1993. "byte
A string that consists of a number of bits, treated as a unit, and usually representing a
character or a part of a character.
NOTES
1 The number of bits in a byte is fixed for a given data processing system.
2 The number of bits in a byte is usually 8."

9. "Computer History Museum – Exhibits – Internet History – 1964: Internet History 1962 to 1992"
(http://www.computerhistory.org/internet_history/#1964). Computer History Museum. 2017
[2015]. Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20170403115211/http://www.computerhistory.or
g/internethistory/) from the original on 2017-04-03. Retrieved 2017-04-03.
10. Jaffer, Aubrey (2011) [2008]. "Metric-Interchange-Format" (http://people.csail.mit.edu/jaffer/MIX
F). Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20170403121705/https://people.csail.mit.edu/jaffer/M
IXF/) from the original on 2017-04-03. Retrieved 2017-04-03.
11. Kozierok, Charles M. (2005-09-20) [2001]. "The TCP/IP Guide – Binary Information and
Representation: Bits, Bytes, Nibbles, Octets and Characters – Byte versus Octet" (http://www.t
cpipguide.com/free/t_BinaryInformationandRepresentationBitsBytesNibbles-3.htm). 3.0.
Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20170403122042/http://www.tcpipguide.com/free/t_Bina
ryInformationandRepresentationBitsBytesNibbles-3.htm) from the original on 2017-04-03.
Retrieved 2017-04-03.
12. ISO 2382-4, Organization of data (2 ed.). "byte, octet, 8-bit byte: A string that consists of eight
bits."
13. Buchholz, Werner (February 1977). "The Word 'Byte' Comes of Age..." (https://archive.org/stre
am/byte-magazine-1977-02/1977_02_BYTE_02-02_Usable_Systems#page/n145/mode/2up)
Byte Magazine. 2 (2): 144. "[…] The first reference found in the files was contained in an
internal memo written in June 1956 during the early days of developing Stretch. A byte was
described as consisting of any number of parallel bits from one to six. Thus a byte was
assumed to have a length appropriate for the occasion. Its first use was in the context of the
input-output equipment of the 1950s, which handled six bits at a time. The possibility of going
to 8 bit bytes was considered in August 1956 and incorporated in the design of Stretch shortly
thereafter. The first published reference to the term occurred in 1959 in a paper 'Processing
Data in Bits and Pieces' by G A Blaauw, F P Brooks Jr and W Buchholz in the IRE
Transactions on Electronic Computers, June 1959, page 121. The notions of that paper were
elaborated in Chapter 4 of Planning a Computer System (Project Stretch), edited by
W Buchholz, McGraw-Hill Book Company (1962). The rationale for coining the term was
explained there on page 40 as follows:
Byte denotes a group of bits used to encode a character, or the number of bits transmitted in
parallel to and from input-output units. A term other than character is used here because a
given character may be represented in different applications by more than one code, and
different codes may use different numbers of bits (ie, different byte sizes). In input-output
transmission the grouping of bits may be completely arbitrary and have no relation to actual
characters. (The term is coined from bite, but respelled to avoid accidental mutation to bit.)
System/360 took over many of the Stretch concepts, including the basic byte and word sizes,
which are powers of 2. For economy, however, the byte size was fixed at the 8 bit maximum,
and addressing at the bit level was replaced by byte addressing. […]"
14. "Timeline of the IBM Stretch/Harvest era (1956–1961)" (https://web.archive.org/web/20160429
212717/http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/IBM/Stretch/102636400.txt).
Computer History Museum. June 1956. Archived from the original (http://archive.computerhisto
ry.org/resources/text/IBM/Stretch/102636400.txt) on 2016-04-29. Retrieved 2017-04-03. "1956
Summer: Gerrit Blaauw, Fred Brooks, Werner Buchholz, John Cocke and Jim Pomerene join
the Stretch team. Lloyd Hunter provides transistor leadership.
1956 July [sic]: In a report Werner Buchholz lists the advantages of a 64-bit word length for
Stretch. It also supports NSA's requirement for 8-bit bytes. Werner's term "Byte" first
popularized in this memo." (NB. This timeline erroneously specifies the birth date of the term
"byte" as July 1956, while Buchholz actually used the term as early as June 1956.)
15. Buchholz, Werner (1956-07-31). "5. Input-Output" (https://web.archive.org/web/201704041604
23/http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/IBM/Stretch/pdfs/06-08/102632289.pdf)
(PDF). Memory Word Length. IBM. p. 2. Stretch Memo No. 40. Archived from the original (htt
p://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/IBM/Stretch/pdfs/06-08/102632289.pdf) (PDF)
on 2017-04-04. Retrieved 2016-04-04. "[…] 60 is a multiple of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. Hence bytes
of length from 1 to 6 bits can be packed efficiently into a 60-bit word without having to split a
byte between one word and the next. If longer bytes were needed, 60 bits would, of course, no
longer be ideal. With present applications, 1, 4, and 6 bits are the really important cases.
With 64-bit words, it would often be necessary to make some compromises, such as leaving 4
bits unused in a word when dealing with 6-bit bytes at the input and output. However, the LINK
Computer can be equipped to edit out these gaps and to permit handling of bytes which are
split between words. […]"
16. Buchholz, Werner (1956-09-19). "2. Input-Output Byte Size" (https://web.archive.org/web/2017

0404161611/http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/IBM/Stretch/pdfs/06-08/1026322
92.pdf) (PDF). Memory Word Length and Indexing. IBM. p. 1. Stretch Memo No. 45. Archived
from the original (http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/IBM/Stretch/pdfs/06-08/102
632292.pdf) (PDF) on 2017-04-04. Retrieved 2016-04-04. "[…] The maximum input-output
byte size for serial operation will now be 8 bits, not counting any error detection and correction
bits. Thus, the Exchange will operate on an 8-bit byte basis, and any input-output units with
less than 8 bits per byte will leave the remaining bits blank. The resultant gaps can be edited
out later by programming […]"
17. Raymond, Eric Steven (2017) [2003]. "byte definition" (http://catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/B/byte.h
tml). Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20170403120304/http://catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/
B/byte.html) from the original on 2017-04-03. Retrieved 2017-04-03.
18. Bemer, Robert William (2000-08-08). "Why is a byte 8 bits? Or is it?" (https://web.archive.org/w
eb/20170403130829/http://www.bobbemer.com/BYTE.HTM#). Computer History Vignettes.
Archived from the original (http://www.bobbemer.com/BYTE.HTM) on 2017-04-03. Retrieved
2017-04-03. "[…] I came to work for IBM, and saw all the confusion caused by the 64-
character limitation. Especially when we started to think about word processing, which would
require both upper and lower case. […] I even made a proposal (in view of STRETCH, the very
first computer I know of with an 8-bit byte) that would extend the number of punch card
character codes to 256 […]. So some folks started thinking about 7-bit characters, but this was
ridiculous. With IBM's STRETCH computer as background, handling 64-character words
divisible into groups of 8 (I designed the character set for it, under the guidance of Dr. Werner
Buchholz, the man who DID coin the term 'byte' for an 8-bit grouping). […] It seemed
reasonable to make a universal 8-bit character set, handling up to 256. In those days my
mantra was 'powers of 2 are magic'. And so the group I headed developed and justified such a
proposal […] The IBM 360 used 8-bit characters, although not ASCII directly. Thus Buchholz's
'byte' caught on everywhere. I myself did not like the name for many reasons. The design had
8 bits moving around in parallel. But then came a new IBM part, with 9 bits for self-checking,
both inside the CPU and in the tape drives. I exposed this 9-bit byte to the press in 1973. But
long before that, when I headed software operations for Cie. Bull in France in 1965–66, I
insisted that 'byte' be deprecated in favor of 'octet'. […] It is justified by new communications
methods that can carry 16, 32, 64, and even 128 bits in parallel. But some foolish people now
refer to a '16-bit byte' because of this parallel transfer, which is visible in the UNICODE set. I'm
not sure, but maybe this should be called a 'hextet'. […]"
19. Blaauw, Gerrit Anne; Brooks, Jr., Frederick Phillips; Buchholz, Werner (June 1959).
"Processing Data in Bits and Pieces". IRE Transactions on Electronic Computers: 121.
20. Dooley, Louis G. (February 1995). "Byte: The Word" (https://web.archive.org/web/1996122012

2258/http://www.byte.com/art/9502/sec2/art12.htm). BYTE. Ocala, FL, USA. Archived from the
original (http://www.byte.com/art/9502/sec2/art12.htm) on 1996-12-20. "[…] The word byte was
coined around 1956 to 1957 at MIT Lincoln Laboratories within a project called SAGE (the
North American Air Defense System), which was jointly developed by Rand, Lincoln Labs, and
IBM. In that era, computer memory structure was already defined in terms of word size. A word
consisted of x number of bits; a bit represented a binary notational position in a word.
Operations typically operated on all the bits in the full word.
We coined the word byte to refer to a logical set of bits less than a full word size. At that time, it
was not defined specifically as x bits but typically referred to as a set of 4 bits, as that was the
size of most of our coded data items. Shortly afterward, I went on to other responsibilities that
removed me from SAGE. After having spent many years in Asia, I returned to the U.S. and
was bemused to find out that the word byte was being used in the new microcomputer
technology to refer to the basic addressable memory unit." (NB. According to his son, Dooley
wrote to him: "On good days, we would have the XD-1 up and running and all the programs
doing the right thing, and we then had some time to just sit and talk idly, as we waited for the
computer to finish doing its thing. On one such occasion, I coined the word "byte", they (Jules
Schwartz and Dick Beeler) liked it, and we began using it amongst ourselves. The origin of the
word was a need for referencing only a part of the word length of the computer, but a part
larger than just one bit...Many programs had to access just a specific 4-bit segment of the full
word...I wanted a name for this smaller segment of the fuller word. The word "bit" lead to "bite"
(meaningfully less than the whole), but for a unique spelling, "i" could be "y", and thus the word
"byte" was born.")
21. Ram, Stefan (17 January 2003). "Erklärung des Wortes "Byte" im Rahmen der Lehre binärer
Codes" (http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~ram/pub/pub_jf47ht81Ht/code_byte_de) (in German).
Berlin, Germany: Freie Universität Berlin. Retrieved 2017-04-10.
22. Origin of the term "byte", 1956 (http://www.xent.com/FoRK-archive/july99/0646.html), archived
(https://web.archive.org/web/20170410125522/http://www.xent.com/FoRK-archive/july99/0646.
html) from the original on 2017-04-10, retrieved 2017-04-10, "A question-and-answer session
at an ACM conference on the history of programming languages included this exchange:
JOHN GOODENOUGH: You mentioned that the term "byte" is used in JOVIAL. Where did the
term come from?
JULES SCHWARTZ (inventor of JOVIAL): As I recall, the AN/FSQ-31, a totally different

computer than the 709, was byte oriented. I don't recall for sure, but I'm reasonably certain the
description of that computer included the word "byte," and we used it.
FRED BROOKS: May I speak to that? Werner Buchholz coined the word as part of the
definition of STRETCH, and the AN/FSQ-31 picked it up from STRETCH, but Werner is very
definitely the author of that word.
SCHWARTZ: That's right. Thank you."

23. "List of EBCDIC codes by IBM" (https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSGH4D_16.
1.0/com.ibm.xlf161.aix.doc/language_ref/asciit.html). ibm.com. 2 January 2020.
24. Williams, R. H. (1969-01-01). British Commercial Computer Digest: Pergamon Computer Data
Series. Pergamon Press. ISBN 1483122107. 978-1483122106.
25. "Philips – Philips Data Systems' product range – April 1971" (https://web.archive.org/web/2016
0304072023/http://www.intact-reunies.nl/pdf/product1971.pdf) (PDF). Philips. April 1971.
Archived from the original (http://www.intact-reunies.nl/pdf/product1971.pdf) (PDF) on 2016-
03-04. Retrieved 2015-08-03.
26. "When is a kilobyte a kibibyte? And an MB an MiB?" (http://www.iec.ch/si/binary.htm). The
International System of Units and the IEC. International Electrotechnical Commission.
Retrieved 2010-08-30.)
27. Prefixes for Binary Multiples (http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html) Archived (https://we
b.archive.org/web/20070808000831/http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html) 2007-08-08
at the Wayback Machine — The NIST Reference on Constants, Units, and Uncertainty
28. 1977 Disk/Trend Report Rigid Disk Drives, published June 1977
29. SanDisk USB Flash Drive (http://apac.sandisk.com/Products/Catalog(1349)-SanDisk_Extreme

_Ducati_Edition_USB_Flash_Drive.aspx) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20080513155
718/http://apac.sandisk.com/Products/Catalog%281349%29-SanDisk_Extreme_Ducati_Editio
n_USB_Flash_Drive.aspx) 2008-05-13 at the Wayback Machine "Note: 1 megabyte (MB) = 1
million bytes; 1 gigabyte (GB) = 1 billion bytes."
30. "How iOS and macOS report storage capacity" (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201402).
Apple Support. 27 February 2018. Retrieved 9 January 2022.
31. "UnitsPolicy" (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UnitsPolicy). Ubuntu Wiki. Ubuntu. Retrieved 9 January
2022.
32. "ConsistentUnitPrefixes" (https://wiki.debian.org/ConsistentUnitPrefixes). Debian Wiki.
Retrieved 9 January 2022.
33. Kilobyte – Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary (http://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/kilobyte) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20100409171320/htt
p://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/kilobyte) 2010-04-09 at the Wayback Machine.
Merriam-webster.com (2010-08-13). Retrieved on 2011-01-07.
34. Kilobyte – Definition of Kilobyte at Dictionary.com (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/kilob
yte) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20100901202451/http://dictionary.reference.com/br
owse/kilobyte) 2010-09-01 at the Wayback Machine. Dictionary.reference.com (1995-09-29).
Retrieved on 2011-01-07.
35. Definition of kilobyte from Oxford Dictionaries Online (http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/k
ilobyte?view=uk) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20060625132017/http://www.askoxfor
d.com/concise_oed/kilobyte?view=uk) 2006-06-25 at the Wayback Machine. Askoxford.com.
Retrieved on 2011-01-07.
36. "Determining Actual Disk Size: Why 1.44 MB Should Be 1.40 MB" (http://support.microsoft.co
m/kb/121839). Support.microsoft.com. 2003-05-06. Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/201
40209012305/http://support.microsoft.com/kb/121839) from the original on 2014-02-09.
37. "3G/GPRS data rates" (https://www.vodafone.ie/planscosts_bus/data/). Vodafone Ireland.
Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20161026232743/https://www.vodafone.ie/planscosts_b
us/data/) from the original on 26 October 2016. Retrieved 26 October 2016.
38. "Data Measurement Scale" (http://www.att.com/support_static_files/KB/KB24648.html). AT&T.
Retrieved 26 October 2016.
39. "Internet Mobile Access" (https://web.archive.org/web/20161026234911/https://www.orange.ro/
recharge/internet.html). Orange Romania. Archived from the original (https://www.orange.ro/re
charge/internet.html) on 26 October 2016. Retrieved 26 October 2016.
40. "Our Customer Terms" (https://www.telstra.com.au/content/dam/tcom/personal/consumer-advic
e/pdf/intl-roaming.pdf) (PDF). Telstra. p. 7. Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/2017041002
0355/https://www.telstra.com.au/content/dam/tcom/personal/consumer-advice/pdf/intl-roaming.
pdf) (PDF) from the original on 10 April 2017. Retrieved 26 October 2016.
41. "Prefixes for binary multiples" (http://www.iec.ch/si/binary.htm). iec.ch. International
Electrotechnical Commission. Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20160925125914/http://w
ww.iec.ch/si/binary.htm) from the original on 25 September 2016. Retrieved 1 October 2016.
42. "SA400 minifloppy" (https://web.archive.org/web/20140527094602/http://www.swtpc.com/mholl
ey/SA400/SA400_Index.htm). Swtpc.com. 2013-08-14. Archived from the original (http://www.s
wtpc.com/mholley/SA400/SA400_Index.htm) on 2014-05-27. Retrieved 2014-03-25.
43. "Archived copy" (https://web.archive.org/web/20110608195322/http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/
SA400/SA400_Datasheet.pdf) (PDF). Archived from the original (http://www.swtpc.com/mholle
y/SA400/SA400_Datasheet.pdf) (PDF) on 2011-06-08. Retrieved 2011-06-24.
44. "Archived copy" (https://web.archive.org/web/20110423194129/http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/de
c/disc/rx01/EK-RX01-MM-002_maint_Dec76.pdf) (PDF). Archived from the original (http://bitsa
vers.org/pdf/dec/disc/rx01/EK-RX01-MM-002_maint_Dec76.pdf) (PDF) on 2011-04-23.
45. IUCr 1995 Report - IUPAC Interdivisional Committee on Nomenclature and Symbols (IDCNS)
http://ww1.iucr.org/iucr-top/cexec/rep95/idcns.htm
46. "Binary Prefix" University of Auckland Department of Computer Science
https://wiki.cs.auckland.ac.nz/stageonewiki/index.php/Binary_prefix
47. National Institute of Standards and Technology. "Prefixes for binary multiples" (http://physics.ni
st.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html). Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20070808000831/http://ph
ysics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html) from the original on 2007-08-08. "In December 1998 the
International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) [...] approved as an IEC International
Standard names and symbols for prefixes for binary multiples for use in the fields of data
processing and data transmission."
48. "What is a kilobyte?" (http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/news99.html). Retrieved
2010-05-20.
49. NIST "Prefixes for binary multiples" https://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html
50. Amendment 2 to IEC International Standard IEC 60027-2: Letter symbols to be used in
electrical technology - Part 2: Telecommunications and electronics.
51. "Order Granting Motion to Dismiss" (https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/202
0/01/flashdrives.pdf) (PDF). United States District Court. Retrieved 2020-01-24.
52. Mook, Nate (2006-06-28). "Western Digital Settles Capacity Suit" (http://www.betanews.com/ar
ticle/Western-Digital-Settles-Capacity-Suit/1151510648). betanews. Retrieved 2009-03-30.
53. Baskin, Scott D. (2006-02-01). "Defendant Western Digital Corporation's Brief in Support of
Plaintiff's Motion for Preliminary Approval" (https://web.archive.org/web/20090102041947/htt
p://www.wdc.com/settlement/docs/document20.htm). Orin Safier v. Western Digital
Corporation. Western Digital Corporation. Archived from the original (http://www.wdc.com/settl
ement/docs/document20.htm) on 2009-01-02. Retrieved 2009-03-30.
54. Judge, Peter (2007-10-26). "Seagate pays out over gigabyte definition" (https://www.zdnet.co
m/seagate-pays-out-over-gigabyte-definition-3039290393/). ZDNet. Retrieved 2014-09-16.
55. Allison Dexter, "How Many Words are in Harry Potter?", [1] (https://wordcounter.io/blog/how-m
any-words-are-in-harry-potter/); shows 190,637 words
56. Kilobytes Megabytes Gigabytes Terabytes (Stanford University) (https://web.stanford.edu/clas
s/cs101/bits-gigabytes.html)
57. Perenson, Melissa J. (4 January 2007). "Hitachi Introduces 1-Terabyte Hard Drive" (http://www.
pcworld.com/article/128400/). www.pcworld.com. Retrieved 5 December 2020.
58. "What does a petabyte look like?" (https://web.archive.org/web/20180128072952/http://www.co
mputerweekly.com/feature/What-does-a-petabyte-look-like). Archived from the original (http://w
ww.computerweekly.com/feature/What-does-a-petabyte-look-like) on 28 January 2018.
Retrieved 19 February 2018.
59. Gross, Grant (24 November 2007). "Internet Could Max Out in 2 Years, Study Says" (https://w
ww.pcworld.com/article/139885/article.html). PC World. Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/
20071126041511/http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,139885-pg,1/article.html) from the original
on 26 November 2007. Retrieved 28 November 2007.
60. "The Zettabyte Era Officially Begins (How Much is That?)" (https://blogs.cisco.com/sp/the-zetta
byte-era-officially-begins-how-much-is-that). Cisco Blogs. 2016-09-09. Retrieved 2021-08-04.
61. Cline, Marshall. "I could imagine a machine with 9-bit bytes. But surely not 16-bit bytes or 32-
bit bytes, right?" (https://isocpp.org/wiki/faq/intrinsic-types#very-large-bytes).
62. Klein, Jack (2008), Integer Types in C and C++ (https://web.archive.org/web/20100327225121/
http://home.att.net/~jackklein/c/inttypes.html#char), archived from the original (http://home.att.n
et/~jackklein/c/inttypes.html#char) on 2010-03-27, retrieved 2015-06-18
63. Cline, Marshall. "C++ FAQ: the rules about bytes, chars, and characters" (https://isocpp.org/wi
ki/faq/intrinsic-types#bytes-review).
64. "External Interfaces/API" (http://www.ece.northwestern.edu/local-apps/matlabhelp/techdoc/mat
lab_external/ch_seri8.html). Northwestern University.
65. "Avatar - The Last Airbender: The Complete Series Blu-ray" (https://web.archive.org/web/2020
0428020854/https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Avatar-The-Last-Airbender-The-Complete-Series
-Blu-ray/199969/). Blu-ray.com. Archived from the original (https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Av
atar-The-Last-Airbender-The-Complete-Series-Blu-ray/199969/) on 28 April 2020. Retrieved
24 February 2021.
Further reading
Programming with the PDP-10 Instruction Set (http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp10/1970_PDP-1
0_Ref/1970PDP10Ref_Part1.pdf) (PDF). PDP-10 System Reference Manual. 1. Digital
Equipment Corporation (DEC). August 1969. Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20170405
154620/http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/dec/pdp10/1970_PDP-10_Ref/1970PDP
10Ref_Part1.pdf) (PDF) from the original on 2017-04-05. Retrieved 2017-04-05.
Ashley Taylor. “Bits and Bytes.” Stanford. https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs101/bits-bytes.html
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Byte&oldid=1065859716#Multiple-byte_units"
This page was last edited on 15 January 2022, at 17:40 (UTC).
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License;

additional terms may apply. By using
this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia
Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.

Byte - Wikipedia

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Byte - Wikipedia

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

1/20/22, 11:39 PM Byte - Wikipedia

The modern de facto standard of eight bits, as documented in ISO/IEC 2382-1:1993, is a

Etymology and history

Units based on powers of 10

Units based on powers of 2

History of the conflicting definitions

Contemporary[e] computer memory has a binary

Modern standard definitions

Lawsuits over definition

Unit Approximate equivalent

megabyte text of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire[55]

about half an hour of video[56]

the largest consumer hard drive in 2007[57]

petabyte 2000 years of MP3-encoded music[58]

exabyte global monthly Internet traffic in 2004[59]

zettabyte global yearly Internet traffic in 2016[60]

4. Buchholz, Werner (1956-06-11). "7. The Shift Matrix" (https://web.archive.org/web/2017040415

2 The number of bits in a byte is usually 8."

16. Buchholz, Werner (1956-09-19). "2. Input-Output Byte Size" (https://web.archive.org/web/2017

20. Dooley, Louis G. (February 1995). "Byte: The Word" (https://web.archive.org/web/1996122012

JULES SCHWARTZ (inventor of JOVIAL): As I recall, the AN/FSQ-31, a totally different

SCHWARTZ: That's right. Thank you."

29. SanDisk USB Flash Drive (http://apac.sandisk.com/Products/Catalog(1349)-SanDisk_Extreme

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Byte&oldid=1065859716#Multiple-byte_units"

This page was last edited on 15 January 2022, at 17:40 (UTC).

Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License;

You might also like