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From: davidsen@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP (William E. Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards,comp.arch
Subject: Re: *Why* do modern machines mostly have 8-bit bytes?
Message-ID: <6802@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 24-Jul-87 11:01:51 EDT
Article-I.D.: steinmet.6802
Posted: Fri Jul 24 11:01:51 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 25-Jul-87 14:15:37 EDT
References: <142700010@tiger.UUCP> <2792@phri.UUCP> <8315@utzoo.UUCP> <2807@phri.UUCP> <6724@think.UUCP> <624@ima.ISC.COM>
Reply-To: davidsen@kbsvax.steinmetz.UUCP (William E. Davidsen Jr)
Organization: General Electric CRD, Schenectady, NY
Lines: 13
Xref: mnetor comp.unix.wizards:3411 comp.arch:1682

In article <624@ima.ISC.COM> johnl@ima.UUCP (John R. Levine) writes:
|It seems to me that all of the eight-bit byte machines we have are following
|the lead of the IBM 360.  In 1964, before the 360 came out, the most common
|word size for binary machines was 36 bits and bytes, if the hardware supported
|them at all were 6 bits.  Various six-bit codes were adequate for the upper
|case alphabet, digits, and a smattering of punctuation.
|
The GE line (now Honeywell) of 36 bit machines had hardware 9 bit bytes
as well. Very nice for graphics characters, etc.
-- 
	bill davidsen		(wedu@ge-crd.arpa)
  {chinet | philabs | sesimo}!steinmetz!crdos1!davidsen
"Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me