Byte of the 8080 and the 8086, used in early personal computers, could also perform a small number of operations on the four-bit pairs in a byte, such as the decimal-add-adjust (DAA) instruction. A four-bit quantity is often called a nibble, also "nybble", which is conveniently represented by a single hexadecimal digit. The term "octet" is used to unambiguously specify a size of eight bits. It is used extensively in protocol definitions. Historically, the term "octad" or "octade" was used to denote eight bits as well at least in Western Europe; however, this usage is no longer common. The exact origin
Stochastic computing Stochastic computing Stochastic computing is a collection of techniques that represent continuous values by streams of random bits. Complex computations can then be computed by simple bit-wise operations on the streams. Stochastic computing is distinct from the study of randomized algorithms. Suppose that formula_1 is given, and we wish to compute formula_2. Stochastic computing performs this operation using probability instead of arithmetic. Specifically, suppose that there are two random, independent bit streams called "stochastic number"s (i.e. Bernoulli processes), where the probability of a one in the first stream is formula_3, and the probability in the second stream is formula_4. We