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In general, an octet is a group consisting of eight elements. It has
a more specific meaning in several fields.
In music, an octet is a musical ensemble consisting of eight musicians. The two best
known octets in classical music are probably those by Felix Mendelssohn (which is for a double string quartet) and Franz Schubert (which is
for clarinet, bassoon, French horn, violin, viola, cello and double
bass). Igor Stravinsky also wrote an octet for wind instruments (an unusual grouping of flute, clarinet, two bassoons, two trumpets and two trombones) and Paul Hindemith
wrote a lesser known piece for clarinet, bassoon, French horn, violin, two violas, cello and double bass.
See also Octet
(Reich), a work by Steve Reich.
In computer technology and networking, an octet is a group of 8 bits. It can be
expressed as a decimal integer in the
range 0-255 or as a pair of hexadecimal digits such as 5E.
On most computers, the smallest unit of memory addressing -- or byte -- is 8 bits, so
the terms "byte" and "octet" are often used interchangeably. However, the size of a byte is determined by the architecture of a
particular computer system: some old computers had 9, 10 or 12-bit bytes, while others had bytes as small as 5 or 6 bits. An
octet is always exactly 8 bits. As a result, computer networking standards almost exclusively use "octet" to refer to the 8-bit
quantity.
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