Nibble

A nibble ( rare: nybble ) is a data set comprising 4 bits, it is also called nibble, nibble or quad.

The designation is based on English verb to nibble ( " nibble ", " take a little bite " ) and the phonetic similarity of bite ( " bite ", " bite " ) and byte. The pun "to nibble = to take half a bite " led to this designation.

The sixteen values ​​of the nibbles include the range of values ​​from zero (binary 0000) to fifteen (binary 1111), and can be easily identified by the hexadecimal digits from 0 hex to Fhex. This is also the reason for the " repudiation " of the Oktalsystems lies with the numeric 0okt to 7okt ( for three binary digits ) - Front and Rear nibble were, for example, in spite of identity due to the octal number representation is not immediately recognizable as such: 273okt = 10111011bin = BBhex ( = 187dec ).

The 16 possible values ​​for a nibble are:

Half a nibble is also called Crumb (English for crumbs ). So a Crumb comprises two bits. This term is very rarely encountered because bits are rarely represented in groups of two.