The processor normally manipulates 8-bit data bytes, but the mask unit makes it possible to manipulate single or multiple bits, making this a variable data-length processor.
Although most machines are not able to address individual bits in memory, nor have instructions to manipulate single bits, each bit in a word can be singled out and manipulated using bitwise operations.
Computers usually manipulate bits in groups of a fixed size, conventionally called words.
There are exceptions, like Paper Rad's psychedelic music video loop, which manipulates video-game figures, called sprites, and other bits of animation, called gifs, that can easily be downloaded from online catalogs to gaudy, immersive effect.
Disk jockeys like Spooky might be better understood as sample jockeys; they manipulate bits of music, voices and other sounds, using turntables and CD players as only part of their setup.
The document basically describes a device that is similar to the interface used in the film Minority Report to manipulate various bits of evidence on a large screen using gestures.
And in the physics labs, experimenters are playing with simple quantum computers in which individual atoms manipulate bits of data.
Today's computers, like a Turing machine, work by manipulating bits that exist in one of two states: a 0 or a 1.
Certain bitwise computer processor instructions (such as bit set) operate at the level of manipulating bits rather than manipulating data interpreted as an aggregate of bits.
She extracted another edge piece, long fingers working as deftly as they did when they were manipulating bits of experimental paraphernalia, or the implements of life and death.