Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!rutgers!labrea!decwrl!nsc!pauls From: pauls@nsc.nsc.com (Paul Sweazey) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: Size of SysV "block" (really: byte != 8 bits) Message-ID: <4503@nsc.nsc.com> Date: Sun, 19-Jul-87 13:21:30 EDT Article-I.D.: nsc.4503 Posted: Sun Jul 19 13:21:30 1987 Date-Received: Sun, 19-Jul-87 21:07:04 EDT References: <218@astra.necisa.oz> <142700010@tiger.UUCP> <2792@phri.UUCP> <6705@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP> <524@ollie.UUCP> Reply-To: pauls@nsc.UUCP (Paul Sweazey) Organization: National Semiconductor, Sunnyvale Lines: 25 In article <524@ollie.UUCP> hansen@mips.UUCP (Craig Hansen) writes: >Has anyone seen a good name used for three 8-bit bytes? I've been using >"tri-byte", but could see it being shortened to "trite" or "tryte." > >-- >Craig Hansen >Manager, Architecture Development >MIPS Computer Systems, Inc. >...decwrl!mips!hansen The IEEE 896 Futurebus uses "quadlet" to refer to 32-bit quantities. I have no idea of the precise history. The terms "triplet", "doublet", and "singlet" (usually just "byte") naturally follow and are used also. Since on a standard backplane bus it is inappropriate to mandate the big- or little-endian structure of the data, there are simply four "lanes" on the 32-bit data "highway". It is therefore possible (and planned) that modules may transfer non-adjacent bytes. If the four byte-wide lanes are labeled W, X, Y, and Z, what do we call a WY, WZ, WXZ, WYZ, etc? Silly discussions attract more silly questions, Paul Sweazey Microprocessor Architecture Group National Semiconductor Corporation