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IN SEARCH OF A NAME
Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2025 9:01 am
by 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.
Re: IN SEARCH OF A NAME
Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2025 9:38 am
by BigEd
sentence?
paragraph?
double long?
long double?
sedecimyte?
hexadecamyte?
hexadecabyte?
Re: IN SEARCH OF A NAME
Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2025 10:26 am
by barnacle
Segment
Re: IN SEARCH OF A NAME
Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2025 10:30 am
by 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?
Re: IN SEARCH OF A NAME
Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2025 10:31 am
by BigEd
or how about chunk? Or block? Or square? (And by that route, quadrat, or ritter.)
Re: IN SEARCH OF A NAME
Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2025 12:21 pm
by barnacle
From nibble->byte->mouthful?
Re: IN SEARCH OF A NAME
Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2025 12:26 pm
by Dr Jefyll
From nibble->byte->mouthful?
Along the same line... a bolus ?
-- Jeff
Re: IN SEARCH OF A NAME
Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2025 1:06 pm
by 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.
Re: IN SEARCH OF A NAME
Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2025 3:02 pm
by Broti
If I recall correctly, older Turbo Pascal literature called 16 bytes Paragraph or Double Quadruple Word
Re: IN SEARCH OF A NAME
Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2025 3:29 pm
by BigDumbDinosaur
Hmm...that might be it.
I've seen references to a paragraph in the past, but they were usually for a range of 1K or 4K bytes.
Hexadecabyte sounds like what happens when one is attacked by a pack of dogs.
Re: IN SEARCH OF A NAME
Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2025 3:32 pm
by BigDumbDinosaur
From nibble->byte->mouthful?
Along the same line... a bolus ?
Re: IN SEARCH OF A NAME
Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2025 3:36 pm
by BigDumbDinosaur
From nibble->byte->mouthful?
I nearly choked on that. 
That one is tied with Ed’s “sentence” suggestion for succinctness. 
Re: IN SEARCH OF A NAME
Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2025 5:17 pm
by 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.
Re: IN SEARCH OF A NAME
Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2025 5:27 pm
by BigDumbDinosaur
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. 
Re: IN SEARCH OF A NAME
Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2025 6:59 pm
by barnacle
Could always use int128_t...