Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!rutgers!cbmvax!grr From: grr@cbmvax.UUCP (George Robbins) Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards,comp.arch Subject: Re: *Why* do modern machines mostly have 8-bit bytes? Message-ID: <2159@cbmvax.UUCP> Date: Sat, 25-Jul-87 19:59:22 EDT Article-I.D.: cbmvax.2159 Posted: Sat Jul 25 19:59:22 1987 Date-Received: Sun, 26-Jul-87 04:46:27 EDT References: <142700010@tiger.UUCP> <2792@phri.UUCP> <8315@utzoo.UUCP> <2807@phri.UUCP> <3766@felix.UUCP> <6171@brl-smoke.ARPA> Reply-To: grr@cbmvax.UUCP (George Robbins) Organization: Commodore Technology, West Chester, PA Lines: 14 Xref: mnetor comp.unix.wizards:3431 comp.arch:1696 In article <6171@brl-smoke.ARPA> gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB)) writes: > In article <3766@felix.UUCP> martin@felix.UUCP (Martin McKendry) writes: > >... it was set to 48 because ... and they wanted a power-of-2 wordsize. > > ?? 8 6-bit characters per word. 8==2^3, etc. I guess you can't blame them for a little shortsightedness, since they tried so hard to do other neat things. Handling integers a special case of floating point seems kind of strange too. -- George Robbins - now working for, uucp: {ihnp4|seismo|rutgers}!cbmvax!grr but no way officially representing arpa: cbmvax!grr@seismo.css.GOV Commodore, Engineering Department fone: 215-431-9255 (only by moonlite)