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
Stochastic computing computing paradigm. Further information can be found in the referenced book by Mars and Poppelbaum. "Bundle Processing" involves sending a fixed number of bits instead of a stream. One of the advantages of this approach is that the precision is improved. To see why, suppose we transmit formula_26 bits. In regular stochastic computing, we can represent a precision of roughly formula_27 different values, because of the variance of the estimate. In bundle processing, we can represent a precision of formula_28. However, bundle processing retains the same robustness to error of regular stochastic processing. "Ergodic Processing" involves sending a stream of