Computing

/hek-sə-ˈdes-məl/

noun — “base sixteen, where digits stop behaving and letters get promoted.”

Hexadecimal is a positional number system with base 16, widely used in computing as a compact representation of binary data. Each digit represents four bits, allowing long binary sequences to be expressed in a shorter, more readable form using symbols 0–9 and A–F.

/heks/

noun — “six things bundled together, or a number system that looks like it belongs in a spellbook but is actually just base sixteen.”

Hex has two common meanings in hacker slang. The first is a shorthand for hexadecimal, the base-16 numbering system used extensively in computing. The second is a casual grouping term meaning a set of six items, similar in spirit to quad as a four-pack.

/din'r/

noun — “a quantity of data large enough to stop nibbling and start committing.”

[by analogy with nybble and Byte]

Dynner is hacker jargon for a quantity of 32 bits. The name extends a long-running tradition of food-themed computing units: if a nybble is a small snack and a byte is a bite, then eventually someone looked at a larger data quantity and decided the only logical progression was dinner.

/dek'l/

noun — “two nickels pretending to be a word size.”

[from dec- and nickle]

Deckle is hacker jargon for a quantity of 10 bits, formed by combining two nickles (where a nickle represents 5 bits). Like its smaller relative, the term emerged not from formal standards but from developers trying to describe unusual hardware layouts that did not fit neatly into the byte-oriented vocabulary that later became dominant.

/krəm/

noun — “barely enough information to leave a trail.”

Crumb is hacker jargon for a quantity of 2 binary digits—that is, 2 bits. It occupies an awkward but oddly charming place between a single Bit and a nybble, making it larger than the smallest practical unit while still feeling too tiny to deserve serious measurement.

Numerically:

/bit/

noun — “the smallest useful piece of information… and occasionally the smallest useful thought.”

[from the mainstream word and Binary digIT]

Bit is the fundamental unit of information in computing. At the technical level, a bit represents a quantity that can exist in one of two possible states. Those states are commonly expressed as 0 and 1, but may also represent true and false, on and off, yes and no, or any other pair of mutually exclusive outcomes.