The concept of words, word length, bits, and bytes in a computer

First, in the performance test, any separation from the bottom of the content, for performance testing, are incomplete, any program, what the middleware if there is no operating system and computer support, are meaningless, because in the computer world, there are some concepts that we can grasp and understand, such as: bits, words, word length

First of all, a bit:

Bits represent bits, commonly called bits, which is the smallest unit of computer storage, similar to the concept of (two, kg, grams), for example: 11010100 is a 8-bit binary number. A bits can represent only 0 and 12 states (21) and two bits can represent 00, 01, 10, 114 (22) states; three-digit binary number can represent eight states (23)

Bytes (byte)

Bytes are from English byte, transliteration is "worship", used in uppercase "B" to express.

Byte is the basic unit of data processing in a computer. The computer stores and interprets information in bytes, stipulating that one byte is composed of eight bits, i.e. 1 bytes equals 8 bits (1byte=8bit). The eight-bit binary number is the smallest 00000000, the maximum is 11111111, usually 1 bytes can be deposited into an ASCII code, 2 bytes can store a Chinese character GB code.

Word

The data length of a single access, processing, and transmission is called word (word) when the computer is data processed. A word usually consists of one or more bytes (typically byte integer digits). For example, the word 286 microcomputer is composed of 2 bytes, and its word length is 16;486 by 4 bytes, and its length is 32-bit.

The length of the computer determines the number of actual digits of the CPU operation, thus the larger the word length of the computer, the better its performance.

Word

The number of digits contained in each word of the computer is called the length. According to the computer, there are two kinds of word length, fixed and variable. Fixed word length, that is, characters in any case are fixed unchanged, variable length, in a certain range, its lengths are variable.

The length of the calculation is the number of binary digits that it can handle at a time. The rate at which a computer processes data is naturally related to the number of bits it can process at a time and the speed at which it is computed. If the length of a computer is twice times that of another computer, even if the two computers are the same speed, the former can do twice times more work in the same time.

Generally speaking, the word length of the mainframe computer is 32―64 bit, the small one is 12―32 bit, and the microcomputer is 4,116 bits. Word length is an important factor in measuring computer performance.

Bytes

Byte refers to a group of adjacent binary digital. Usually 8 bits as a byte. It is a small unit of information, and as a whole to participate in operations, smaller than the word, is composed of the unit of words.

In microcomputers, how many bytes are usually used to represent the storage capacity of the memory.

Word block

In information processing, a group of words is treated as a unit called "chunks". Also known as "Word Group". For example, a word group stored on a track of the drum is called a word block. On tape, a character block is usually spaced every 120 characters, also known as a word block. The interval between blocks and blocks is generally left 1.27―2.54 cm (1/211 inches). In mass storage, information is stored in chunks, so only chunks are available for siting. At present, the concept of "word block" is also introduced in the technology of high speed Sui Chong.

Description of the word in the operating system:

Word

In the computer, a string of digital as a whole to deal with or operation, called a computer word, referred to as Yu. Words are usually divided into several bytes (typically 8 bits per byte). In memory, each cell usually stores a word, so each word can be addressed. The length of the word is represented by a number of digits.

In the computer's calculator, the controller, usually is transmits in the word unit. Woo appears at different addresses and its meaning is not the same. For example, the word sent to the controller is an instruction, and the word sent to the operator is a number.

A binary string that is accessed, transmitted, and processed as a whole in a computer is called a word or a cell, and the length of the number of bits in each word is called words. A word is made up of several bytes, the word length of different computer systems is different, the common 8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit, 64-bit and so on, the longer the word length, the more the computer processing information bit, the higher the precision, word length is an important indicator of computer performance. At present, the mainstream microcomputer is 32-bit machine.

Note the difference between words and words, Word is the unit, and length is the indicator, indicators need to be measured by units. Just like the weight of life with the kilogram of the relationship, KG is the unit, weight is the indicator, weight needs to be measured in kilograms.