Re: [OT] bits and bytes

From: John Cowan (cowan@mercury.ccil.org)
Date: Thu May 17 2001 - 21:47:09 EDT

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Peter_Constable@sil.org scripsit:

> Can anyone clarify for me how big a byte has ever been? (If you could
> identify the particular hardware, that would be helpful.)

On the 36-bit PDP-10 architecture, a byte could be any size from 1 to 36
bits. ASCII was commonly stored in 5 7-bit bytes with an extra bit unused.

-- 
John Cowan                                   cowan@ccil.org
One art/there is/no less/no more/All things/to do/with sparks/galore
	--Douglas Hofstadter

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