Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!ucsd!ucbvax!husc6!encore!pinocchio.encore.com
From: jkenton@pinocchio.encore.com (Jeff Kenton)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Looking for a really odd computer
Message-ID: <12916@encore.Encore.COM>
Date: 11 Oct 90 01:34:03 GMT
References: <ESMITH.90Oct10173750@goofy.apple.com>
Sender: news@Encore.COM
Lines: 21

From article <ESMITH.90Oct10173750@goofy.apple.com>, by esmith@goofy.apple.com (Eric Smith):
> 
>>   Five bits gave you radix 50 (used by the file system).
> 
> Sorry, five gave you radix 32.  The file system used six bits per character,
> or radix 64.
> --

Radix 50 (50 is octal == 40 decimal) gave 3 characters per 16 bit word.  There
were 39 encodable characters: A-Z, 0-9, and "$", "%", ".".  Each character
had a value from 1 to 39 (in the order shown).  A 16 bit value was created
by calculating 1600*<first char> + 40*<second char> + <third char>, giving
slighly fewer than 64000 possibilities.

The six bit per character encoding scheme was known as SIXBIT (surprise!).


----- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -----
-----  jeff kenton:    	consulting at jkenton@pinocchio.encore.com  -----
-----		                 always at (617) 894-4508 	    -----
----- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -----