Byte machine
A byte machine is a digital computer whose processors, as the smallest unit , can address and process a bit sequence with the length of one byte (usually 8 bits ). Although it is possible to see a byte as a concatenation of several binary data types, every bit-wise operation on this byte always affects the byte as a whole. This means that the complete byte for each bit-by-bit operation is loaded into one of the data registers of the CPU and not just that part of it that is changed by the operation. Pointers to memory addresses always point to the beginning of a byte. If you increase such a pointer by "1", it does not point to the next bit, but to the next byte in the memory.
However, this does not mean that a byte machine can only process one byte per clock cycle. Modern processors are able to store 32, 64 or even 128 bits (i.e. 4, 8 or 16 bytes) per register and process them within one clock step . Even more complex data structures can be distributed over several registers (chronologically serial and / or parallel) and processed with several clock steps.
Every PC is a byte machine.
- See also: Von Neumann architecture
literature
- HR Hansen: Wirtschaftsinformatik I. , 5th edition, Gustav Fischer, Stuttgart 1986
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ HR Hansen: Wirtschaftsinformatik I p. 125