Computer number format with a specific number of bits are used to represent varying things and have specific names. A "byte" is a bit string containing the number of bits needed to represent a character. On most modern computers, this is an eight bit string. Because the definition of a byte is related to the number of bits composing a character, some older computers have used a different bit length for their byte. In many computer architectures, the byte is used to address specific areas of memory. For example, even though 64-bit processors may address memory sixty-four bits at a time, they may
Stochastic computing can take the logical AND of the two streams. The probability of a one in the output stream is formula_5. By observing enough output bits and measuring the frequency of ones, it is possible to estimate formula_5 to arbitrary accuracy. The operation above converts a fairly complicated computation (multiplication of formula_3 and formula_4) into a series of very simple operations (evaluation of formula_9) on random bits. More generally speaking, stochastic computing represents numbers as streams of random bits and reconstructs numbers by calculating frequencies. The computations are performed on the streams and translate complicated operations on formula_3 and formula_4 into