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From: Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk>
Newsgroups: comp.programming
Subject: Re: 64-bit bytes
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 01:16:17 +0000
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Richard Heathfield <invalid@see.sig.invalid> writes:

> robin.vowels@gmail.com wrote:
>
>> On Monday, January 12, 2015 at 8:19:07 PM UTC+11, Richard Heathfield
>> wrote:
>>> r.nospam@gmail.com wrote:
>>> 
>>> > On Monday, January 12, 2015 at 11:32:42 AM UTC+11, Richard Heathfield
>>> > wrote:
>>> >> r.nospam.vowels@gmail.com wrote:
>>> >> 
>>> >> <snip>
>>> >>  
>>> >> > A byte is a fixed-length field of 8 bits.
>>> >> 
>>> >> ...except when it isn't. For example, some embedded systems
>>> >> ("freestanding implementations") use 32-bit bytes. At least one of the
>>> >> Analog SHARC chips uses 32-bit bytes.
>>> > 
>>> > They are more appropriately called "words".
>>> 
>>> So what would you call the smallest addressable unit of memory, then?
>>> That's what "byte" is supposed to mean, after all.
>> 
>> No it's not.  There are machines where the smallest addressable unit of
>> memory is the bit.
>
> On such machines, bytes are 1 bit wide.

That's a very odd use of the term.  Is it just you?  In my experience
the term has always referred to an aggregate of multiple bits (usually
enough to store some system-dependent idea of a character).

> (And yes, there are such machines. I 
> designed a virtual machine with 1-bit bytes. I wrote four programs for it, 
> three of which were rather dull.

The only bit-addressed hardware I know (the famous Burroughs machines)
freely uses the term byte.  There are 8-bits wide.

<snip>
-- 
Ben.