Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!mcnc!ece-csc!uvacs!mac From: mac@uvacs.CS.VIRGINIA.EDU (Alex Colvin) Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards,comp.arch Subject: Re: *Why* do modern machines mostly have 8-bit bytes? Message-ID: <1810@uvacs.CS.VIRGINIA.EDU> Date: Fri, 24-Jul-87 16:09:07 EDT Article-I.D.: uvacs.1810 Posted: Fri Jul 24 16:09:07 1987 Date-Received: Sat, 25-Jul-87 17:54:26 EDT References: <142700010@tiger.UUCP> <2792@phri.UUCP> <8315@utzoo.UUCP> <17137@glacier.STANFORD.EDU> Organization: University of Virginia Lines: 12 Summary: bytes for text Xref: mnetor comp.unix.wizards:3426 comp.arch:1689 Reasons for 8-bit bytes (instead of, e.g., 6) ASCII EBCDIC Reasons for machines that operate on bytes instead of just e.g., words. text processing text files character stream I/O Remember BCD? Fieldcode? PDP-8? mac the naive