Bits, bytes and other things

All the information entering or leaving a microprocessor is in the form of

Bits are passed through the microprocessor at very high speed and in large numbers and we find it easier to group them together.

A group of four bits handled as a single lump. It is half a byte.

A byte is simply a collection of 8 bits. Whether they are ones or zeros or what their purpose is does not matter.

A number of bits can be collected together to form a ‘word’. Unlike a byte, a word does not have a fixed number of bits in it. The length of the word or the number of bits in the word depends on the microprocessor being used.

If the microprocessor accepts binary data in groups of 32 at a time then
the word in this context would include 32 bits. If a different
microprocessor used data in smaller handfuls, say 16 at a time, then
the word would have a value of 16 bits. The word is unusual in this
context in as much as its size or length will vary according to the
situations in which it is discussed. The most likely values are 8, 16, 32
and 64 bits but no value is excluded.
Long word

In some microprocessors where a word is taken to mean say 16 bits,