Cell Relay Archive

[Hubert Daugherty <hd@rice.edu>]

>From the OED:

bit bit, sb.4 [Abbrev. of binary digit. ] 

1. A unit of information derived from a choice between two equally
probable alternatives or `events'; such a unit stored electronically in
a computer. 

     1948 C. E. Shannon in Bell Syst. Techn. Jrnl. July 380 The choice
of a logarithmic base corresponds to the choice of a unit for measuring
information. If the base 2 is used the resulting units may be called
binary digits, or more briefly bits, a word suggested by J. W. Tukey. 




byte b<e>it. Computers. [Arbitrary, prob; influenced by bit sb.4 and
bite sb. ] A group of eight consecutive bits operated on as a unit in a
computer. 

     1964 Blaauw & Brooks in IBM Systems Jrnl. III. 122 An 8-bit unit of
information is fundamental to most of the formats [of the System/360]. A
consecutive group of n such units constitutes a field of length n.
Fixed-length fields of length one, two, four, and eight are termed
bytes, halfwords, words, and double words respectively. 

     1964 IBM Jrnl. Res. & Developm; VIII. 97/1 When a byte of data
appears from an I/O device, the CPU is seized, dumped, used and
restored. 

Hubert
-- 
Hubert Daugherty   Rice University / Rice Multimedia and E-COT Project
 hd@rice.edu       (713) 527-4035 / Fax (713) 527-6099 / NeXTMail
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