Byte addressing

As Bytemaschine is called digital computer, have the smallest unit (usually 8-bit) address and process a bit string with the length of a byte whose processors. Although it is possible to see a byte as a concatenation of a plurality of types of binary data, but applies to any bitwise operation on this byte is always the byte as a whole. This means that the complete byte for each bit operation in one of the data registers of the CPU is loaded and not only one part of which is changed by the operation. Pointers to memory addresses always show it to the beginning of a byte. Increased to such a pointer to "1", it does not point to the next bit, but to the next byte in the memory.

However, this does not mean that a Bytemaschine per clock cycle can process a single byte. Modern processors are capable of 32, 64 or even 128 bits (ie 4, 8, or 16 bytes ) per store register and to process within one clock step. More complex data structures can be (time- series and / or parallel) distributed over several tabs and processed with a plurality of clock steps.

Each PC is a Bytemaschine.

  • See also: Von Neumann Architecture
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