Computer number format still split that memory into eight-bit pieces. This is called byte-addressable memory. Historically, many CPUs read data in some multiple of eight bits. Because the byte size of eight bits is so common, but the definition is not standardized, the term octet is sometimes used to explicitly describe an eight bit sequence. A "nibble" (sometimes "nybble"), is a number composed of four bits. Being a half-byte, the nibble was named as a play on words. A person may need several nibbles for one bite from something; similarly, a nybble is a part of a byte. Because four bits allow for
Consistent Overhead Byte Stuffing end of the packet. There are two equivalent ways to describe the COBS encoding process: These examples show how various data sequences would be encoded by the COBS algorithm. In the examples, all bytes are expressed as hexadecimal values, and encoded data is shown with text formatting to illustrate various features: Below is a diagram using example 3 from above table, to illustrate how each modified data byte is located, and how it is identified as a data byte or an end of frame byte. Examples 7 through 10 show how the overhead varies depending on the data being encoded