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Bites & Bytes (lemmy.nz)
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[-] heartSagan5@lemmy.zip 5 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

Word=4bytes Dword=8bytes=2words Qword=16bytes=4words

*On a 32-bit, x86 arch. The word size on Voyager is like 12-bits or something odd.

[-] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 134 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)
[-] RustySharp@programming.dev 22 points 1 day ago

Looks more like a panTerabyte

[-] Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 1 day ago

"some sort of elaborate Peta-bite image"

[-] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 4 points 18 hours ago

I wouldn't suggest petting that bite. It'll take a chunk.

[-] trashman@feddit.org 6 points 1 day ago

Now I get it!

"I am never gonna financially recover from this."

Joe predicted the AI memory crisis. Mind blown!

[-] BitsAndBites@lemmy.world 42 points 1 day ago
[-] ohshit604@lemmy.halstead.host 4 points 14 hours ago

3 year old account and now is when you decide to introduce yourself?

[-] BitsAndBites@lemmy.world 3 points 13 hours ago

Nice to meet you

[-] fartographer@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

Now I wanna see an animated Beetlejuice/Addams Family crossover

[-] gatitaQwQ@lemmy.world 2 points 17 hours ago

That bite looks like it was painful.₍^. .^₎Ⳋ

[-] OpenStars@discuss.online 13 points 1 day ago
[-] A_norny_mousse@piefed.zip 5 points 1 day ago

Funny, in Finnish a byte is called a syllable. Which would better apply to a nibble I guess.

[-] Natanael@infosec.pub 3 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)
[-] heartSagan5@lemmy.zip 5 points 15 hours ago

It depends on the architecture. Some chips have weird words, like the Voyager spacecraft computer.

[-] A_norny_mousse@piefed.zip 5 points 18 hours ago

Oh. Shit, first I didn't know what a nibble is, now I didn't know what a word is ... I'll just show myself out and make sure I never try to write any assembler code.

[-] Natanael@infosec.pub 3 points 17 hours ago
[-] A_norny_mousse@piefed.zip 1 points 8 hours ago

Trust Finns to hang on to some outdated term!

[-] OpenStars@discuss.online 1 points 15 hours ago

Actually that does sound best... but not because of anything to do with you, that advice just applies to all humans for the last basically twenty years. So it's nothing to do with AI slop, but rather compilation got SO FREAKING GREAT that in like 99.9% of cases it does better than a human.

Ironically, one of the reasons for that is that concepts like "word" varies between different architectures (like like "byte" too - e.g. you've likely heard the distinction between 32-bit vs. 64-bit systems). As the other person said it is usually 4 bytes but other times it can be like 2 (in super old systems I suppose) or more than 4 in like super powerful ones (128-bit ones maybe?).

And compilers keep track of ALL of those minutiae, as well as a bunch more stuff too. Like a small(-ish) loop that only runs a couple to few times is far more efficient to just be duplicated in the assembly code, rather than have the GO-TO procedure jump back to its beginning spot. And also it helps immensely to feed things to the chip based on what the various cache sizes are - L1, L2, L3 (though not all chips have all... or even any of those).

So yeah, it's best to leave compilation to the computer to handle, thus freeing up the programmer to handle the overall logical flow and deal with other higher-order effects like code reuse and documentation and stuff.

[-] A_norny_mousse@piefed.zip 11 points 1 day ago

🤔 what's a nibble then? ... oh, it's half a byte

[-] Kn1ghtDigital@lemmy.zip 7 points 1 day ago

I thought it was spelled 'nybble'?

[-] A_norny_mousse@piefed.zip 9 points 1 day ago

According to the article linked both are valid

[-] bss03@infosec.pub 2 points 23 hours ago

Yeah, I've always used the "nybble" spelling for data instead of tooth activity. But, also I think more people just use "hex digit".

[-] Zorque@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Depends on if its referring to hard drive storage or reality.

[-] Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 day ago

Hard drive storage: 3.737965139 bits

[-] notSys@lemmy.cafe 4 points 1 day ago
[-] ITGuyLevi@programming.dev 3 points 20 hours ago

Two crumbs...

[-] embed_me@programming.dev 8 points 1 day ago
[-] modus@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago

What's the other half called?

[-] tetris11@feddit.uk 9 points 22 hours ago
[-] palordrolap@fedia.io 5 points 22 hours ago

Wait until you learn what the other seven parts of a byte are called when the first one is called a bit.

[-] Cyberfuchs@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 23 hours ago

One is called high nibble, the other half is called low nibble

[-] stardustpathsofglory@lemmy.world 1 points 20 hours ago

Sounds like a case for the beauty doc

this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2026
722 points (99.2% liked)

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