16BitEinheiten

16BitEinheiten is a term used to describe data units that consist of 16 bits, equivalent to two bytes. In computing, these units are fundamental for representing numeric values, addresses, or characters within systems that operate with 16-bit data paths or registers. The concept also appears in text encoding schemes that use 16-bit code units.

Numerically, an unsigned 16BitEinheit can store values from 0 to 65,535. When interpreted as signed using two's complement, the representable range is -32,768 to 32,767. The interpretation depends on the context and the data type defined by software or hardware. Storage order, or endianness, affects how the two bytes are arranged in memory: little-endian systems place the least significant byte first, while big-endian systems place the most significant byte first.

Historically, 16BitEinheiten were prominent in 16-bit architectures and environments, such as 16-bit microprocessors and early personal computers, where data paths and memory were organized around 16-bit quantities. They remain relevant in modern contexts where 16-bit microcontrollers and certain legacy interfaces are used, as well as in data encoding schemes that rely on 16-bit units.

In text processing, UTF-16 is an example of a scheme that uses 16BitEinheiten as its basic code unit, with surrogate pairs employed to encode code points beyond the Basic Multilingual Plane. This illustrates how 16-bit units intersect with both numeric data and character encoding.

Related topics include 16-bit computing, endianness, and UTF-16.