Byte addressing 8 bits; in fact, depending on the platform, byte sizes of 1 to 48 bits have been used in the past. Therefore, the term "octet" is used where the context makes byte-length ambiguous. For example, in the 1980s, Honeywell mainframes had 36-bit words, and were byte-addressable in 9-bit bytes, or "nonets", They used 7- or 8-bit character codes, either of which were stored one to each 9-bit byte, making characters individually addressable. To illustrate why byte addressing is useful, consider the IBM 7094, which is word-addressable and has no concept of a byte. It has 36-bit words, and stores its
Packed pixel Packed pixel In packed pixel or chunky framebuffer organization, the bits defining each pixel are grouped together. For example, if there are 16 bits per pixel, each pixel is represented in two consecutive (contiguous) 8-bit bytes in the framebuffer (a.k.a. screen buffer). If there are 4 bits per pixel (16 colors), each frame buffer byte defines two pixels, one in each nibble. The latter example is as opposed to storing perhaps half of the bits—2 bits—for each of four pixels in one byte and the other two bits for each of those four pixels in another byte or bytes. It