Byte Byte The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits, representing a binary number. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable unit of memory in many computer architectures. The size of the byte has historically been hardware dependent and no definitive standards existed that mandated the size – byte-sizes from 1 to 48 bits are known to have been used in the past. Early character encoding systems often used six bits, and machines
Type-in program such as "Byte" and "Popular Computing" printed them less frequently, often as a test program to illustrate a technical topic covered in the magazine rather than an application for general use. Consumer-oriented publications such as "Compute!" and "Family Computing" ran several each issue. The programs were sometimes specific to a given home computer and sometimes compatible with several computers. Entirely platform-specific magazines such as "Compute!'s Gazette" (Commodore) and "Antic" (Atari), since they only had to print one version of each program, were able to print more, longer listings. Although type in programs were usually copyrighted, like the many games in