Octet (computing) has represented various storage sizes in the history of computing. Due to the influence of several major computer architectures and product lines, the byte became overwhelmingly associated with eight bits. This meaning of "byte" is codified in such standards as ISO/IEC 80000-13. While "byte" and "octet" are often used synonymously, those working with certain legacy systems are careful to avoid ambiguity. Octets can be represented using number systems of varying bases such as the hexadecimal, decimal, or octal number systems. The binary value of all eight bits set (or activated) is , equal to the hexadecimal value , the decimal
Byte addressing systems, such as the PDP-10, use word addressing but facilitate access to individual bytes using special instructions which can access memory using a "byte pointer", which contains both a word address and the index of a specific byte within the word. Byte addressing Byte addressing refers to hardware architectures which support accessing individual bytes of data rather than only larger units called words, which would be "word-addressable". Such computers are sometimes called "byte machines" (in contrast to "word machines"). The basic unit of digital storage is called a bit, storing a single 0 or 1. Many common architectures can address