Computer number format with a specific number of bits are used to represent varying things and have specific names. A "byte" is a bit string containing the number of bits needed to represent a character. On most modern computers, this is an eight bit string. Because the definition of a byte is related to the number of bits composing a character, some older computers have used a different bit length for their byte. In many computer architectures, the byte is used to address specific areas of memory. For example, even though 64-bit processors may address memory sixty-four bits at a time, they may
Byte (magazine) Byte (magazine) Byte was an American microcomputer magazine, influential in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s because of its wide-ranging editorial coverage. Whereas many magazines from the mid-1980s had been dedicated to the MS-DOS (PC) platform or the Mac, mostly from a business or home user's perspective, "Byte" covered developments in the entire field of "small computers and software", and sometimes other computing fields such as supercomputers and high-reliability computing. Coverage was in-depth with much technical detail, rather than user-oriented. "Byte" started in 1975, shortly after the first personal computers appeared as kits advertised in the back of electronics