The term nibble originates from the fact that the term byte is a pun on the English word bite. A nibble is a small bite, or half a bite. The nybble spelling parallels the spelling of byte.
Many references suggest that both "nibble" and "nybble" represent 4 bits or half a bite. Others maintain that 1 nybble represents 8 nibbles in the same way that 1 byte represents 8 bits.
2 comments:
I have always heard that a nybble (or nibble) is half a byte. My comp. sci. instructor said it was 2 bytes however.
You're right, your instructor is WRONG.
A nybble is 4 bits, there are 2 nybbles in a byte. In the olden days of computers, two bytes were called a word.
Good Job
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