Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!steinmetz!davidsen From: davidsen@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP (William E. Davidsen Jr) Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards,comp.arch Subject: Re: Size of SysV "block" (really: byte != 8 bits) Message-ID: <6705@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP> Date: Wed, 15-Jul-87 12:46:15 EDT Article-I.D.: steinmet.6705 Posted: Wed Jul 15 12:46:15 1987 Date-Received: Sat, 18-Jul-87 00:46:40 EDT References: <218@astra.necisa.oz> <142700010@tiger.UUCP> <2792@phri.UUCP> Reply-To: davidsen@kbsvax.steinmetz.UUCP (William E. Davidsen Jr) Organization: General Electric CRD, Schenectady, NY Lines: 34 Xref: mnetor comp.unix.wizards:3258 comp.arch:1602 In article <2792@phri.UUCP> roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) writes: >In article <142700010@tiger.UUCP> rjd@tiger.UUCP writes: >> O.K., I'll byte. (oops, pun initially unintended.) A byte IS eight bits!!! >> Maybe you are thinking of a word?? And a nibble is four bits, and a gulp is >> sixteen bits (or was this a mouthful?), etc.... > Let me clarify this: 8 bits is a byte 4 bits is a nybble 2 bits is a tayste (actually 2 bits is a quarter) 36 bit machines usually support at least 6 and 9 bit bytes in hardware, although I'm sure someone will write and tell me that their machine is not only obsolete but brain-damaged as well and doesn't have any hardware bytes. 36 bit machines were a great idea which fell by the wayside... the extra bit in the byte allows many extended character sets (ASCII + 384 others), the short is +/-262144, large enough for many applications, and the long is +/-64*10^9, which will hold almost any real world value. When most of our applications were moved from a Honeywell to vaxen and an IBM, we did a lot of conversion to long, double, and real*8, because the number of significant digits dropped to <1. ================================================================ | Please any followup discussion of archetecture to | | comp.arch not wizards! | ================================================================ -- bill davidsen (wedu@ge-crd.arpa) {chinet | philabs | sesimo}!steinmetz!crdos1!davidsen "Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me