this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2024
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It bothers me it's not in 4 bit "bytes" even though I know it's just a convention for computers
The four bit sections of eight bit bytes are called nibbles, you know because nibbles are small bites
Ugh jeez.. right. I literally always mess that up
You can do all of math in binary, it isn't just for computers. In fact, the proof for "Russian Peasant Multiplication" was written in binary.
So you can do all mathematical operations in binary, but you can't represent all numbers in binary like 0.3, which is a repeating number, and had the same issues as a number like 1/3 in decimal where you can't avoid rounding errors
It's worth noting that 1/3 is also a repeating number in binary. 0.01010101....
While 0.3 is in binary 0.0100110011001100...
I'm not sure what sort of point you think you're making but 0.0100110011 in binary is only 0.065% off from 0.3, but how often would you organically encounter 0.3?
Many fractions in decimal are also repeating numbers or very long trailing numbers, I especially encounter a lot when working with time which is base 60.
A byte is eight bits.
That's a matter of convention, not technical definition. A byte can be any number of bits, depending on hardware. For a while 6 bit bytes were common. RFC 791 refers to an 8 bit byte as an octet
French-speaking people do too it seems. On second hand websites in Switzerland you always see that some disks are listed for e.g. 250 Go and others for 250 GB, depending on the first language of the seller.
4 bits is a nybble
Yes. I am dumb.