byte

/bi:t/ , n. [techspeak] A unit of memory or data equal to the amount used to
represent one character; on modern architectures this is invariably 8 bits.
Some older architectures used byte for quantities of 6, 7, or (especially) 9
bits, and the PDP-10 supported bytes that were actually bitfields of 1 to 36
bits! These usages are now obsolete, killed off by universal adoption of
power-of-2 word sizes. Historical note: The term was coined by Werner
Buchholz in 1956 during the early design phase for the IBM Stretch computer;
originally it was described as 1 to 6 bits (typical I/O equipment of the
period used 6-bit chunks of information). The move to an 8-bit byte happened
in late 1956, and this size was later adopted and promulgated as a standard
by the System/360. The word was coined by mutating the word bite so it would
not be accidentally misspelled as bit. See also nybble.

