Byte explicitly denotes a sequence of eight bits, eliminating the ambiguity of the byte. The term "byte" was coined by Werner Buchholz in June 1956, during the early design phase for the IBM Stretch computer, which had addressing to the bit and variable field length (VFL) instructions with a byte size encoded in the instruction. It is a deliberate respelling of "bite" to avoid accidental mutation to "bit". Another origin of "byte" for bit groups smaller than a machine's word size (and in particular groups of four bits) is on record by Louis G. Dooley, who claimed he coined the term
Byte (magazine) resumed publication after a few years of interruption. The Arabic edition also ended abruptly. Many of "Byte"'s columnists migrated their writing to personal web sites. One was science fiction author Jerry Pournelle's weblog "The View From Chaos Manor" derived from a long-standing column in "Byte", describing computers from a power user's point of view. After the closure of "Byte" magazine, Pournelle's column continued to be published in the Turkish editions of "PC World", which was soon renamed as "PC Life" in Turkey. "Byte Japan", with the name licensed from McGraw Hill, was the leading computer magazine in Japan, Published by