FIT100
OED Entry For Byte
byte (baIt). Computers. [Arbitrary, prob. influenced by bit sb.4 and bite sb.] A group of eight consecutive bits operated on as a unit in a computer. 1964 Blaauw & Brooks in IBM Systems Jrnl. III. 122 An 8-bit unit of information is
fundamental to most of the formats [of the System/360]. A consecutive group of
n such units constitutes a
field of length n. Fixed-length fields of
length one, two, four, and eight are termed bytes, halfwords, words, and double words respectively. 1964 IBM Jrnl. Res. &
Developm.
VIII. 97/1 When
a byte of data appears from an I/O device, the CPU is seized, dumped, used and
restored. 1967 P. A. Stark Digital Computer
Programming
xix. 351 The normal operations in fixed point are done on four bytes at a time. 1968 Dataweek 24 Jan. 1/1 Tape reading and
writing is at from 34,160 to 192,000 bytes per second.
<e><hg><hw>byte</hw>
<pr><ph>baIt</ph></pr></hg>.
<la>Computers</la>. <etym>Arbitrary, prob. influenced by
<xr><x>bit</x></xr>
<ps>n.<hm>4</hm></ps>and
<xr><x>bite</x> <ps>n.</ps> </xr></etym>
<s4>A group of eight consecutive bits operated on as a unit in a
computer.</s4> <qp><q><qd>1964</qd><a>Blaauw</a>
&. <a>Brooks</a> <bib>in</bib> <w>IBM
Systems Jrnl.</w> <lc>III. 122</lc> <qt>An 8-bit unit of
information is fundamental to most of the formats <ed>of
the System/360</ed>.&es.A consecutive group of <i>n</i>
such units constitutes a field of length
<i>n</i>.&es.Fixed-length fields of length one, two, four, and
eight are termed bytes, halfwords, words, and double words respectively.
</qt></q><q><qd>1964</qd> <w>IBM Jrnl.
Res. &. Developm.</w> <lc>VIII. 97/1</lc>
<qt>When a byte of data appears from an I/O device, the CPU is seized,
dumped, used and restored.</qt></q>
<q><qd>1967</qd> <a>P. A. Stark</a>
<w>Digital Computer Programming</w> <lc>xix.
351</lc> <qt>The normal operations in fixed point are done on four bytes at
a time.</qt></q><q><qd>1968</qd>
<w>Dataweek</w> <lc>24 Jan. 1/1</lc> <qt>Tape reading and
writing is at from 34,160 to 192,000 bytes per
second.</qt></q></qp></e>