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Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Size of SysV "block" (really: byte != 8 bits)
Message-ID: <8315@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 17-Jul-87 15:54:17 EDT
Article-I.D.: utzoo.8315
Posted: Fri Jul 17 15:54:17 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 17-Jul-87 15:54:17 EDT
References: <218@astra.necisa.oz> <142700010@tiger.UUCP>, <2792@phri.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 16

> 	On a DEC-10/20, for example, a byte can reasonably be anything from
> 1 (0?) to 36 (35?) bits; 6, 7, and 9 bit bytes are all quite common...

Another example worth mentioning is the BBN C/70 and its kin, which have
10-bit bytes as I recall.  This isn't quite the same situation as the
DEC-20, which has 36-bit words and a rather fuzzy notion of (sort of)
bitfields within them; on the C/70, the division of memory into bytes is
just as fixed as it is on (say) a VAX, but the bytes are 10 bits wide,
no more, no less.  There are also machines with 9-bit bytes, although one
seldom sees them in the Unix world.

And then there's the PDP-8, where you get your choice of 12-bit bytes (ugh)
or 6-bit bytes (ARGH)...
-- 
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