Byte

The byte (/ˈbaɪt/) is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable unit of memory in many computer architectures. The size of the byte has historically been hardware dependent and no definitive standards existed that mandated the size. The de facto standard of eight bits is a convenient power of two permitting the values 0 through 255 for one byte. The international standard IEC 80000-13 codified this common meaning. Many types of applications use information representable in eight or fewer bits and processor designers optimize for this common usage. The popularity of major commercial computing architectures has aided in the ubiquitous acceptance of the 8-bit size.

The unit octet was defined to explicitly denote a sequence of 8 bits because of the ambiguity associated at the time with the byte. The usage of the term octad(e) for 8 bits is no longer common today.

Byte (magazine)

Byte magazine was an American microcomputer magazine, influential in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s because of its wide-ranging editorial coverage. Whereas many magazines from the mid-1980s had been dedicated to the MS-DOS (PC) platform or the Mac, mostly from a business or home user's perspective, Byte covered developments in the entire field of "small computers and software", and sometimes other computing fields such as supercomputers and high-reliability computing. Coverage was in-depth with much technical detail, rather than user-oriented. Print publication ceased in 1998 and online publication in 2013.

Byte started in 1975, shortly after the first personal computers appeared as kits advertised in the back of electronics magazines. Byte was published monthly, with an initial yearly subscription price of $10.

Foundation

In 1975 Wayne Green was the editor and publisher of 73 (an amateur radio magazine) and his ex-wife, Virginia Londner Green was the Business Manager of 73 Inc. In the August 1975 issue of 73 magazine Wayne's editorial column started with this item:

Bug!

Bug! is a 3D rendered platform/adventure video game developed by Realtime Associates for the Sega Saturn. Released in 1995 as a launch game for the Saturn in North America, it was one of the earliest 3D platform games. It was later localized to Europe and Japan, then ported to Windows 3.x and Windows 95 on August 31, 1996 by Beam Software, on one CD that contains both versions of the game.

A sequel was released in 1996, Bug Too!.

Plot

The background plot centers around the title character, Bug!, a famous Hollywood star hoping to make his "biggest break" ever. Players take control shortly after Bug! has signed up a deal for the lead role in an action film in which his girlfriend is kidnapped by Queen Cadavra and must set out to rescue her. The gameplay takes place "on the set" of each scene and cutscenes between levels indicate Bug! moving over from one set to the next.

Gameplay

Bug! was played like a traditional side-scrolling adventure game. In the same fashion as Sonic the Hedgehog , Bug! must jump and stung on the heads of his enemies to defeat them while making his way through large levels and collecting power-ups. What sets Bug! apart is the game's 3D levels, which take the side-view and tweak it. Bug! can walk sidewise up vertical surfaces and even upside down. Each set of levels (ranging from a bright, green grassy area to a deep red, desert level) has a deeply individual look and feel.

Bug (Starship Troopers)

The Bugs are an extraterrestrial race in the novel Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein, its film adaptation (and its first and second sequels, an animated film and spin-off television series), sometimes also referred to as the Arachnids, although this is a misnomer, as the aliens are not related to Earth arachnids.

The Bugs in the film differ considerably from those in the novel, which calls the Bugs "Pseudo-Arachnids". Meanwhile, Mongoose Publishing's Starship Troopers: The Miniatures Game refers to them as the Arachnid Empire or the Bug Empire. In the third film in the franchise, the bugs are referred to as "Archie", similar to nicknames given to Germans ("Jerry") and the Viet Cong ("Charlie") in their respective wars. The novel's Bugs are highly susceptible to radiation and chemical attacks, and the Mobile Infantry frequently seals their escape holes.

Colonization

In the films, the Arachnid Quarantine Zone consists of many star systems colonized by the Arachnids. At some point "plasma" bugs developed the ability to fire spores into orbit. Utilizing a bioship star drive, the spores can travel to other systems and impact with planets, thus spreading Arachnid eggs and creating a new generation of bugs.

Southern Bug

The Southern Buh, also called Boh River (in Ukrainian) and Southern Bug (in Russian), (Ukrainian: Південний Буг, Pivdennyi Buh: Russian: Южный Буг, Yuzhny Bug), is a river located in Ukraine. The second longest river in Ukraine.

The source of the river is in the west of Ukraine, in the Volyn-Podillia Upland, about 145 km from the Polish border, from where it flows southeasterly into the Bug Estuary (Black Sea basin) through the southern steppes. It is 806 kilometres (501 mi) long and drains 63,700 km².

Major cities on the Southern Bug: Khmelnytskyi, Vinnytsia, Pervomaisk, Mykolaiv (listed downstream, i.e. southwards).

Nomenclature, etymology and history

(Ukrainian: Південний Буг, Pivdennyi Buh; Ukrainian: Бог; Polish: Boh; Russian: Южный Буг, Yuzhny Bug, Ottoman Turkish: Aksu)

Herodotus (c. 484–425 BCE) refers to the river using its ancient Greek name: Hypanis. During the Migration Period of the 5th to the 8th centuries CE the Southern Bug represented a major obstacle to all the migrating peoples in the area.