byte8

Byte8 is a term used in computing to denote an eight-bit data unit, the basic building block for representing and moving data in most modern systems. In formal standards this unit is called an octet, while Byte8 appears primarily in informal writing, documentation, or branding to emphasize the eight-bit byte.

In practice, Byte8 refers to a single unit of eight bits, which can encode 256 distinct values (0 through 255). Although eight-bit bytes are the norm on most contemporary architectures such as x86 and ARM, some historical or specialized systems used non‑eight-bit bytes, making the octet term more precise in formal contexts.

Bytes serve as the fundamental unit for memory addressing and data encoding. Character encodings such as ASCII, ISO-8859, and the initial portions of UTF-8 are defined in terms of bytes, while endianness describes how multi-byte values are ordered within memory or during transfer between systems with different byte orders.

Byte8 has also appeared as the name of small projects, educational kits, or branding for tools related to eight-bit data handling. It is not a registered standard or widely adopted specification, and references typically use either byte, octet, or the explicit eight-bit description to avoid ambiguity.

See also: Byte; Octet; Endianness; ASCII; UTF-8; Data encoding.