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by Galeanda on February 16th, 2008

Galeanda

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Where does the computer term "byte" come from?

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  • by VSPrasad on March 3rd, 2008

    VSPrasad

    1956, Amer.Eng.; see bit (2). Reputedly coined by Dr. Werner Buchholz at IBM.

    http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=byte

    Expansion of bit, coined by Dr. Werner Buchholz in July 1956, during the early design phase for the IBM Stretch computer.

    http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Byte

    1. unit of computer information: a group of eight bits of computer information, representing a unit of data such as a number or letter

    2. computer storage unit: a unit of computer memory equal to that needed to store a single character

    [Mid-20th century. Probably alteration of bit after bite "morsel," or acronym <binary digit eight]

    http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/dictionary/DictionaryResults.aspx?refid=1861593835

    (BinarY TablE)- BYTE- The common unit of computer storage from desktop computer to mainframe. It is made up of eight binary digits (bits). A ninth bit may be used in the memory circuits as a parity bit for error checking. The term was originally coined to mean the smallest addressable group of bits in a computer, which has not always been eight.

    A byte holds the equivalent of a single character, such as the letter A, a dollar sign or decimal point. For numbers, a byte can hold a single decimal digit (0 to 9), two numeric digits (packed decimal) or a number from 0 to 255 (binary numbers).

    http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/byte

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  • by Tinkerbell on February 16th, 2008

    Tinkerbell

    It is a corruption of "bite" and comes from it being the largest "bite" of data a computer could take at a time.

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