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From: bruno@ecrcvax.UUCP (Bruno Poterie)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Size of SysV "block" (really: byte != 8 bits)
Message-ID: <422@ecrcvax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 20-Jul-87 12:41:53 EDT
Article-I.D.: ecrcvax.422
Posted: Mon Jul 20 12:41:53 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 22-Jul-87 05:21:30 EDT
References: <2792@phri.UUCP> <6705@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP> <524@ollie.UUCP> <2799@phri.UUCP>
Reply-To: bruno@ecrcvax.UUCP (Bruno Poterie)
Organization: ECRC, D-8000 Munich 81, West Germany
Lines: 25
Keywords: octet byte

[line-eater]

The french "octet" is of the same family as "octal", and means no more
than: [a group of] eight [bits].
We do use "byte" to indicate a (small) quantity of information, mostly a 
character, which ordinarily fit into an "octet". The confusion of the two 
notions is quite common, as everywhere (therefore this discussion), so one 
can see statements like: 
		  1 octet = 1 byte
which are wrong (but the inclusion of the second into the first is true).
On some 36 bits machines I worked on,  a byte was actually 12 bits, giving 
a 3 bytes/word machine. The fact is that those architectures were developed 
in a time were EBDIC was still dominant.
I even started learning assembler and binary on a 19 bits machine!
The word was described in octal, 6 full digits plus an additional 0 or 4.
I let you imagine the joy of writing dump and conversion routines for us
poor beginers.... :-(

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