IN SEARCH OF A NAME

[BigDumbDinosaur]

In a 6502 system, we may refer memory ranges in several ways:

• Two bytes is a “word.”
   
• Three bytes is an “extended word” (a 65C816 thing ).
   
• 4 bytes is a “double word.”
   
• 8 bytes is a “long word.”
   
• 256 bytes is a “page.”
   
• 65,536 bytes is a “bank.”

Without going into the “why,” I need a succinct name to refer to a range of 16 bytes.

[BigEd]

sentence?
paragraph?
double long?
long double?
sedecimyte?
hexadecamyte?
hexadecabyte?

[barnacle]

Segment

[BigEd]

In other worlds, I see 'quadword' has been used, but in our case a word is only two bytes, so 'octaword' would be the equivalent.

By the same token, 'quaddouble' would be consistent.

fourbyfour?

[BigEd]

or how about chunk? Or block? Or square? (And by that route, quadrat, or ritter.)

[barnacle]

From nibble->byte->mouthful?

[Dr Jefyll]

barnacle wrote:

From nibble->byte->mouthful?

Along the same line... a bolus ?

-- Jeff

[barrym95838]

It's a distant memory and therefore possibly inaccurate, but I think I've heard this referred to as a "paragraph" in the 8086/8 camp, coming from the way the segment registers are shifted left four bits before being incorporated into the 20-bit effective address.

[Broti]

If I recall correctly, older Turbo Pascal literature called 16 bytes Paragraph or Double Quadruple Word

[BigDumbDinosaur]

BigEd wrote:

sentence?

Hmm...that might be it.

Quote:

paragraph?

I've seen references to a paragraph in the past, but they were usually for a range of 1K or 4K bytes.

Quote:

hexadecabyte?

Hexadecabyte sounds like what happens when one is attacked by a pack of dogs. 

[BigDumbDinosaur]

Dr Jefyll wrote:

barnacle wrote:

From nibble->byte->mouthful?

Along the same line... a bolus ?

[BigDumbDinosaur]

barnacle wrote:

From nibble->byte->mouthful?

I nearly choked on that. 

Quote:

Segment

That one is tied with Ed’s “sentence” suggestion for succinctness. 

[Paganini]

I like 'segment,' but if you want something pedantically literal (and that also sounds sort of 'C-ish') "long double" or "double long" would fit the bill.

[BigDumbDinosaur]

Paganini wrote:

I like 'segment,' but if you want something pedantically literal (and that also sounds sort of 'C-ish') "long double" or "double long" would fit the bill.

“Long double” in C refers to a particular floating point number size.  I was looking for a general reference, one that doesn’t imply a particular sort of data type or structure.

I’m leaning toward “segment,” although it is x86-ish. 

[barnacle]

Could always use int128_t...