Byte consists of 7 or 8 bites

It is said that "A byet is 7 or 8 bites, depending on whether parity is used" in one book. Can someone explain what is parity and how it afftest the number of bits in a byte? thanks...

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binarysoul

Shouldn't it be "A byte is 7 or 8 bits, depending on whether parity is used"??

Excellent observation

I could be wrong but I believe if parity is used then a byte is 7 bits (but again one bit is parity, so 7+1 is

, and if not it's 8 bits.

But a byte is always 8 bits.

blargoe

byte is always 8 bits. all 8 of those bits might be data, or maybe only 7 bits of data + 1 parity.

BubbaJ

I think a more accurate way of looking at it is how many bits of information are transmitted per byte. A byte is 8 bits, but, in the old days when trasmissions were less reliable and mostly text, 7 bits of data werre transmitted per byte. The parity bit was used to help determine if there were a glitch in the transmission. If the 7 data bits added to an odd number, the parity bit was set to one, and if the data bits added to an even number, the parity bit was set to zero. This was checked on the receiving end, and if it didn't match, the data were known to be corrupt. In those days, text was ASCII which was defined as 7 bits so it worked very well.

eurotrash

binarysoul wrote:

(but again one bit is parity, so 7+1 is

Seven plus one equals cool?

OMGZOR!!!!1!!!!!!!1111!1

binarysoul

Actually when I typed (7+1 is

, I mistakenly typed : before ), so it made it a smily face

One of those funny conicidenes.

binarysoul

Ohh I didn't know 8 and ) made smily face. I meant ( 7+1 is 8 )

EdTheLad

Too funny!!

eurotrash

binarysoul wrote:

Ohh I didn't know 8 and ) made smily face. I meant ( 7+1 is 8 )

I know.