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Byte Addressing
Byte addressing in hardware architectures supports accessing individual bytes. Computers with byte addressing are sometimes called ''byte machines,'' in contrast to ''word-addressable'' architectures, ''word machines'', that access data by word. Background The basic unit of digital storage is a bit, storing a single 0 or 1. Many common architectures can address more than 8 bits of data at a time. For example, the Intel 386SX processor can handle 16-bit (two-byte) data, since data is transferred over a 16-bit bus. However, data in memory may be of various lengths. Byte addressable memory supports accessing data in units that are narrower than the bus. An eight-bit processor like the Intel 8008 addresses eight bits, but as this is the full width of the bus, this is regarded as word-addressable. The 386SX, which addresses memory in 8-bit units but can fetch and store it 16 bits at a time, is termed byte-addressable. The advantage of word addressing is that more memory can be addre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Byte
The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable unit of memory in many computer architectures. To disambiguate arbitrarily sized bytes from the common 8-bit definition, network protocol documents such as The Internet Protocol () refer to an 8-bit byte as an octet. 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. 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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Word-addressable
In computer architecture, ''word addressing'' means that addresses of memory on a computer uniquely identify words of memory. It is usually used in contrast with byte addressing, where addresses uniquely identify bytes. Almost all modern computer architectures use byte addressing, and word addressing is largely only of historical interest. A computer that uses word addressing is sometimes called a ''word machine''. Basics Consider a computer which provides 524,288 (219) bits of memory. If that memory is arranged in a byte-addressable flat address space using 8-bit bytes, then there are 65,536 (216) valid addresses, from 0 to 65,535, each denoting an independent 8 bits of memory. If instead it is arranged in a word-addressable flat address space using 32-bit words, then there are 16,384 (214) valid addresses, from 0 to 16,383, each denoting an independent 32 bits. More generally, the minimum addressable unit (MAU) is a property of a specific memory abstraction. Different a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Word Machine
In computer architecture, ''word addressing'' means that addresses of memory on a computer uniquely identify words of memory. It is usually used in contrast with byte addressing, where addresses uniquely identify bytes. Almost all modern computer architectures use byte addressing, and word addressing is largely only of historical interest. A computer that uses word addressing is sometimes called a ''word machine''. Basics Consider a computer which provides 524,288 (219) bits of memory. If that memory is arranged in a byte-addressable flat address space using 8-bit bytes, then there are 65,536 (216) valid addresses, from 0 to 65,535, each denoting an independent 8 bits of memory. If instead it is arranged in a word-addressable flat address space using 32-bit words, then there are 16,384 (214) valid addresses, from 0 to 16,383, each denoting an independent 32 bits. More generally, the minimum addressable unit (MAU) is a property of a specific memory abstraction. Different a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Word Orientation
In computing, a word is the natural unit of data used by a particular processor design. A word is a fixed-sized datum handled as a unit by the instruction set or the hardware of the processor. The number of bits or digits in a word (the ''word size'', ''word width'', or ''word length'') is an important characteristic of any specific processor design or computer architecture. The size of a word is reflected in many aspects of a computer's structure and operation; the majority of the registers in a processor are usually word-sized and the largest datum that can be transferred to and from the working memory in a single operation is a word in many (not all) architectures. The largest possible address size, used to designate a location in memory, is typically a hardware word (here, "hardware word" means the full-sized natural word of the processor, as opposed to any other definition used). Documentation for older computers with fixed word size commonly states memory sizes in words ra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
