Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!samsung!munnari.oz.au!mel.dit.csiro.au!yarra!bohra!als From: als@bohra.cpg.oz (Anthony Shipman) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: Looking for a really odd computer Message-ID: <636@bohra.cpg.oz> Date: 12 Oct 90 01:27:47 GMT References: <2383@ux.acs.umn.edu> Organization: Computer Power Group, Melb, Australia Lines: 26 In article , esmith@goofy.apple.com (Eric Smith) writes: > In article <2383@ux.acs.umn.edu> dhoyt@vx.acs.umn.edu writes (talking about > the DECsystem-10): > > > characters? Five bits gave you radix 50 (used by the file system). Nine was > > Sorry, five gave you radix 32. The file system used six bits per character, > or radix 64. > -- > Eric L. Smith Opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those > esmith@apple.com of my employer, friends, family, computer, or even me! :-) The "50" is in octal. The actual radix was 40 decimal. The code was used mainly in symbol tables in the assembler (and linker). The legal symbol characters (0-9, A-Z, '.', "something", "something" and NUL) were mapped to the values 0-39. The 6 chars of the symbol were then combined in the usual way sum (Di x 40^i), i=0..5 The resulting value could fit in 32 bits leaving 4 for symbol flags like local/global etc. -- Anthony Shipman ACSnet: als@bohra.cpg.oz.au Computer Power Group 9th Flr, 616 St. Kilda Rd., St. Kilda, Melbourne, Australia D