Where did Bytes Come From? - Computerphile

Why do we have 8 bits in a byte? Professor Brailsford on the origins of the humble byte.

This video was filmed and edited by Sean Riley.

[patavinity]

"At home I've got ten-digit log tables, a thick book of them"

His bedtime reading, what a savage.

[BertGrink]

This man ought to be declared a National Treasure.

[TheDave]

Also as a telecoms engineer, I would like to point out that 8 bits wasn't always a byte, so when bandwidth matters we call them "octets" to be sure that we really do mean 8 bits. The term is still in use today.

[LindaLooUK]

I do so love Professor Brailsford's videos. I understand about 1% of what he says usually (although this video was more approachable) but I'm happy to listen to whatever he has to say. His enthusiasm and depth of knowledge is extraordinary and he has such a lovely way about him. :)

[NeilRoy]

One is a bit, four bits is a nibble, two nibbles is a byte so therefore two bytes is... a word? Calling two bytes a "word" just breaks the whole eating theme! I propose we rename two bytes as a "snack" and maybe four bytes a "meal"! ;)

Great video anyhow, as always. Love Mr. Brailsford. And I definitely want to hear more from him about 8bit computing and IBM, though I think I know the answer to that one, having grown up with them.

[Zackyzic]

Honestly, like anyone is going to refuse an invitation to learn more about that beautiful historical background! I am but a lowly Electronics Engineering student, but knowing how the pioneers of the field set about innovating and planning early platforms is really interesting because a lot of this deals with hardware solutions devised to solve practical problems. It reminds me of the (possibly) small group of amazing souls who perform the arduous task of optimising our compilers and working with lower level languages like fortran, C, assembly level etc. To imagine that people were just ploughing through these problems is somewhat humbling and also scary to imagine. Its like the wild wild west, where the concrete boundaries between electronics and computer science and computer engineering were super blurry, before embedded systems came along and everything became compact. Its like staring into the heart of my subject and that's what makes me appreciate these historical lessons. Please, keep em coming professor!

[LightDhampire]

In my Computer Systems class, my professor worked for IBM back in the day and told stories from when he worked there. One of those was the big debate over whether to call the byte either 8 or 6 bits.

[timh.]

Anyone else want Dr. Brailsfrod to narrate a complete 'history of computing' online course? He's got the perfect mix of domain specific knowledge and grandfatherly tone to make the topic interesting.

[rentzepopoulos]

Great video! I fondly remember when working on a Univac in the early 80s where we had 36-bit words that could hold *either* 4 9-bit (sort of) ASCII characters *or* 6 6-bit FIELDATA characters that were the standard character set used by the operating system :)

[StephenFarthing]

I wrote my first programs on an ICL1903a back in 1971 at the Lanchester Polytechnic where I read Biogeography. It had an Algol 60 compiler and a 24 bit word length and six bit bytes. The ICL1900 series was very widely used in U.K. academia and government.

[danieljensen]

I would watch the video he talks about making at the end

[realcygnus]

Brailsford's knowledge of the history/evolution of computing technology is always fascinating.

[Bldravnz]

Really interesting story, I want to hear more about the 8bit micro please! :D

[Naeddyr]

Professor Brailsford has really become a real storyteller / showman. That end especially :D

[greenghost]

He was there when the first computer was made. My man literally interned for Alan Turing.

[ffggddss]

When I entered college in the mid-60's, the byte had yet to be standardized.
We had a Bendix machine (two conjoined twin G-20's, called by the faculty, a "G-21"), which was on its way out the door, and which had four 7-bit bytes per word.
It was replaced with a Univac 1108, which had six 6-bit bytes per word.
And then along came an IBM 360/95, with four 8-bit bytes per word.

After I graduated, some time in the 70's I believe, the Intel 8080 took off, putting the microprocessor on the map, big-time.
It was really the trilobite of the computer era – they were everywhere, in every conceivable device.
And by then, the 8-bit byte was firmly established. (There was sometimes also a 4-bit nibble [nybble?].)

Fred

[notes_at_dusk]

I could listen to this man all day. I wish that I knew all that he knows. Thank you!

[davidstoneback]

This man oozes intelligence every time he opens his mouth.

[elirane]

As a software engineer, I could listen to Prof Brailsford all day long.
If he ever decided to write a book, I would buy one for every coder I know.

[zlkkwiu]

Best computer science professor I ever had. And I didn't study at the University of Nottingham.