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From: ihm@minnie.UUCP (Ian Merritt)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.m68k,comp.std.internat,comp.arch
Subject: Re: How do you say "byte" in French?
Message-ID: <341@minnie.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 8-Dec-86 13:31:46 EST
Article-I.D.: minnie.341
Posted: Mon Dec  8 13:31:46 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 14-Dec-86 20:29:45 EST
References: <125@ogesml0.UUCP> <2523@phri.UUCP> <346@pttesac.UUCP>
Reply-To: ihm@minnie.UUCP (Ian Merritt)
Organization: The Frobboz Magic Dungeon Co., Inc.
Lines: 43
Xref: mnetor comp.sys.m68k:76 comp.std.internat:36 comp.arch:119

>In article <2523@phri.UUCP> roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) writes:
>>In article <125@ogesml0.UUCP> ciaran@ogesml0.UUCP (Ciaran O'Donnell) writes:
>>> vitesse 25 Mhz, zero wait states, 1 megaoctet de RAM dynamique sur la carte)
>>We have enough trouble here teaching
>>people that a byte doesn't have to be 8 bits -- if you call it an "octet",
>
>A byte doesn't have to be 8 bits?  I thought a byte was *always*
>8 bits.  I thought a "word", or in C a "char" could be any number of
>bits, but that the "byte" was 8 bits.

Ah, here  we  have  the  crux  of  the  problem;  the  proliferation  of
terminology with partial loss of meaning.  A byte actually refers not to
a specific number of bits, but actually to an arbitrary number  of  bits
that  is somewhat context dependent.  The advent of the term "octet" (at
least in its utilization in english) does refer specifically to 8  bits.
For  whatever  it's worth, the PDP-10/DEC-20 systems do not have a fixed
byte size.  Instead, there is a special goodie  called  a  byte  pointer
which  consists  of an address, an offset, and a size.  Using these, any
size bytes (from 1 to 36 bits) can be manipulated with the  instructions
provided.

In  the  microprocessor  world,  and in most other newer machines, there
have not been bytes of other than 8 bits, so the meaning  of  this  term
has  become  constrained  in  the  minds of those not familiar with such
machines as the PDP-10.  Something similar has  happend  with  the  term
"Baud"  which  actually  refers  to  the  number  of symbols per second,
regardless of how many bits  are  encoded  per  symbol.   As  such,  the
so-called  1200  baud  modem  is  really 1200 bps, and (I think they are
qpsk) probably 300 baud.

>
>So what about a "nibble"?

Nybble (spelled with a "y", as in byte) usually refers to a half-byte,
which in most recent cases (i.e. since the advent of the term nybble)
happens to be 4 bits.

Cheerz--
						<>IHM<>

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