2 ms·
A byte is the smallest addressable memory unit, nothing more, nothing less. It's true that on most modern machines it's always equal to 8 bits (and it's mandate
by simias 8y ago
A byte is the smallest addressable memory unit, nothing more, nothing less. It's true that on most modern machines it's always equal to 8 bits (and it's mandated by POSIX AFAIK) but that's orthogonal.
In French when talking about storage capacity we use "octet" instead of "byte", I always thought that made more literal sense (if you have a 1megabyte memory on a system where CHAR_BITS is 16, do you have 8 or 16 megabits?).
- vardump 8y agoThere are bit-addressable CPUs and DSPs. Examples are many microcontrollers (part of the memory accessible in bit-addressable windows), and famous TMS34010 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TMS34010 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TMS34010). 4-bit CPUs (like the one in your toothbrush or thermometer) can also of course address 4-bit "words", "bytes" or nibbles. So 8 bits might not be the smallest addressable memory unit.