why was the 'byte' created?

[ShawnD1]

a bit is a simple switch of yes or no, 1 bit = 1 switch. a byte is 8 switches..... what is so special about 8? does the byte have any purpose?

[mireland]

Originally posted by ShawnD1
a bit is a simple switch of yes or no, 1 bit = 1 switch. a byte is 8 switches..... what is so special about 8? does the byte have any purpose?

Maybe so people could wear them t-shirts that say "Byte me"???
:D :D :D

[ShawnD1]

what about 'Some geek bit me' :D

[BipolarBill]

Bytes make up "words". 8 is a good number for enough combinations for a segment of a word. A byte with parity has 9 bits, BTW.

[Swordfish]

now does that make any difference?;)

[BipolarBill]

Nope - it's deep nerd stuff. :x

[ukulele]

I always thought it is the least amount of bits capable of representing all the ASCII charactor codes. Nybbble on that. :cool:

[BipolarBill]

Wise guy!

[ukulele]

Two nybbles makes a byte but one nybble by itself is of no real use at all. Go figure. :rolleyes:

[Swordfish]

1 nibble=4 bits
2 nibbie=8 bits=1 byte=...ahhh forget it;)

[BipolarBill]

...and a quarter = two bits. :D

[Ammok]

it all functions on a thing called binary, as opposed to decimal

2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256,512,1024 and so on, or the power of two if you paid any attention to your arithmetic teacher.
:)

[$1500-P4 gamer]

Yep machine lang. is binary. Surprised no one mentioned Dwords! Hehe:D

[ukulele]

Considering there is 255 ascii charactors ( including the special charactors) then the lowest number of bits that can represent all of them is 8.

2 to the power of 8 = 256.

Thus a byte is not a word but wrather a single ascii charactor in binary which could contain less then 8 bits but not more then 8 bits. Computer designers early on designed the file structures to save space based on this sequence. Individual file lengths were based on how many bytes would best fit if they all contained the maximum number of bits in a byte. It is interesting to note that a great deal of space is wasted in establishing a fixed number of bits for a byte but it is the only way the register can read the data.

[Ammok]

byte
Abbreviation for binary term, a unit of storage capable of holding a single character. On almost all modern computers, a byte is equal to 8 bits. Large amounts of memory are indicated in terms of kilobytes (1,024 bytes), megabytes (1,048,576 bytes), and gigabytes (1,073,741,824 bytes).

word
In programming, the natural data size of a computer. The size of a word varies from one computer to another, depending on the CPU. For computers with a 16-bit CPU, a word is 16 bits (2 bytes). On large mainframes, a word can be as long as 64 bits (8 bytes).

Some computers and programming languages distinguish between shortwords and longwords. A shortword is usually 2 bytes long, while a longword is 4 bytes.

duly plagerised from www.webopedia.com:)

[ukulele]

Hmmm.... Does the eight bit Amiga see words or bytes? :confused:

[Ammok]

naw....it only gets too nibbles,LOL.:D

[AllGamer]

Actually what you guys are talking about are Octets Sequences, or as some mentioned machine language

but is not really machine languages since they talk Assembler, which in fact uses human algorithm but in binary mode

so regardless of bits or bytes, it all ends up in something or nothing, or in machine lagunage it's 1 or 0 :)

and all this number talks is too geeky for me :p

[Ammok]

i agree with you AG, that's all it can be, something and nothing, maybe something or nothing, then again, something nor nothing or exclusively. This is a wonderous thing to ponder upon.:confused:

[AllGamer]

well of that's elementary
and i totally agree with you

if it's something it has to be something, else if it can not be something then it must be nothing, but if it's nothing then how can it be something?, yet for PCs when something is nothing, then nothing is actually something

isn't it wondeful? something for nothing? :D

why can't life be so simple :p

so in traslation the above is

if 1 = 1, else 1 =! 0, do 1 = 0, then 0 = 1

so at the end we get: 1 = 1 :D

:t

[Ammok]

LOL.:D

[ShawnD1]

thanks ukulele (spelling?) you answered it perfectly. i have no clue wtf you other guys are talking about....

[rangeral]

Doesn't matter Shawn you unleashed them, its your responsibility, guilty.:D

Now lets move on to tagging an electron.

[BipolarBill]

Nybble makes sense? You're goofy! :p

[bassman]

Just to add to ukelele's great and simple explanation:

Mr. Von Neumann, one of the greatest geniuses of all history, realized the potential of using binary arithmetics on computers; any machine with two states can represent numbers in binary (today, transistors represent "Saturated stated"=1 "Cutoff"=0). Another advantage is, when you use decimal system, it's harder to correct errors: imagine the number 943 - if the four was incorrect, you'd have 9 other options to correct it; each digit in the number 1101 has only one other alternative for correction ;)
Binary is more simple than decimal, tough it need more digits to represent a number

Oh right...I hate Assembly...but we can always say that machine level is nerdy and pretend that computers work due to a little magic leprechaun sitting on the inside... :rolleyes:

[ShawnD1]

my computer really does have a leprechaun inside though :(

[germanjulian]

i take it u guys didnt do a computer degree like me now
here is some fun

If the address bus is 32-bit wide and the page size is 16 Kbytes, how many pages are there?

Describe briefly the MS-DOS FAT (File Allocation Table) with the help of a diagram. In the diagram, show a file with three blocks.

Four batch processes A, B, C and D are in a ready queue in the order A-D. Their service times are A (8 min), B (4 min), C (4 min), D (4 min).

(i) Calculate the turnaround time for each process using a FCFS scheduling algorithm as well as the average turnaround time for all four processes.

[gjimene2]

Originally posted by BipolarBill
Nope - it's deep nerd stuff. :x

Binary Codes- ASCII

decode this Bill:

57 41 5A 5A 55 50 21 21 21

73 6F 72 72 79 66 6F 72 63 61 70 73


:D


and man, you guys would love monday nights, we mostly talk in Binary over here to tell time, count ect. and Binary ASCII for speaking :x :x :x

[BipolarBill]

Originally posted by gjimene2


Binary Codes- ASCII

decode this Bill:

57 41 5A 5A 55 50 21 21 21

73 6F 72 72 79 66 6F 72 63 61 70 73


:D


and man, you guys would love monday nights, we mostly talk in Binary over here to tell time, count ect. and Binary ASCII for speaking :x :x :x Um...I have better things to do?

:D

[gjimene2]

Originally posted by BipolarBill
Um...I have better things to do?

:D



roflmao. you said it was for nerds so, :p :x :r :D :eek:

[rangeral]

gjimene2 I don't think I like your tone when you say "decode this".:D

Germ thats

2 pages

and

9 nanoseconds

whats my score.:D

[gjimene2]

lmao,, haha,, "decode this" :D :D

got it wrong :P

it only has 5 words :D the first is in caps ;)

you got an "E" for Effort

*ducks the stoning*

[BipolarBill]

Machine code, hexadecimal and binary math are all very interesting, but useless to know in day-to-day computing. While algerbra 1 came in handy once or twice, I don't think that anything beyond that will really help my little IT career down here in Texas.

I got cows to rope! YeeeeeeeHAW! :x

[ukulele]

Originally posted by AllGamer
Actually what you guys are talking about are Octets Sequences, or as some mentioned machine language

but is not really machine languages since they talk Assembler, which in fact uses human algorithm but in binary mode

so regardless of bits or bytes, it all ends up in something or nothing, or in machine lagunage it's 1 or 0 :)

and all this number talks is too geeky for me :p

Actually it is not even 1 or 0. The numbers only represent a state of charge or no charge. Computers don't work with math beyond adding and subtracting. They use pure logic which is more then I can say for geeks who try to tell time in binary. :rolleyes:

[gjimene2]

Originally posted by ukulele

They use pure logic which is more then I can say for geeks who try to tell time in binary. :rolleyes:


HEY!!! :p we do that so that the pupils can get used to understanding binary :D

[rangeral]

Hey Bill I use to herd them in and feed them sometimes I might use the old 47 chevy pickup to get them in got paid in the best greaseless steaks I ever ate for a neighbor and his name was so typical "Clem Garrison" an organic cattleman.

[BipolarBill]

In Staten Island? :x

[$1500-P4 gamer]

Originally posted by BipolarBill
In Staten Island? :x
Hey BP, watch the tourist comercials. NewYork has more to do than most countries hehe.:rolleyes:

[leprechaun_40]

A leprechaun in your computer:confused: hmmmmm:t

Binary, on equals 1, off equals 0, this is a bit, 8 bits to the byte, yaddda yadda yadda,

I'm just glad it has an interface that makes sense of it all to me:D

[rangeral]

Ha, that would be a good one, naw it was back in oregon, good cattle and farming country with a dash of skiing.:)

[gjimene2]

how about a skying cow? :D :D

[rangeral]

:D