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From: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: *Why* do modern machines mostly have 8-bit bytes?
Message-ID: <2303@mmintl.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 31-Dec-69 18:59:59 EDT
Article-I.D.: mmintl.2303
Posted: Wed Dec 31 18:59:59 1969
Date-Received: Sun, 16-Aug-87 12:06:26 EDT
References: <142700010@tiger.UUCP> <2792@phri.UUCP> <8315@utzoo.UUCP> <3532@ihlpg.ATT.COM> <1037@vaxb.calgary.UUCP> <17721@amdcad.AMD.COM> <699@elmgate.UUCP>
Reply-To: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Organization: Multimate International, E. Hartford, CT.
Lines: 13

In article <699@elmgate.UUCP> ram@elmgate.UUCP (Randy Martens) writes:
|I have just completed an assignment working on a bunch of COMPAQ deskpro-286
|PC's.  They use 18 bit words ( 9 bit bytes).
|
|The reason - ... because there is hardware parity checking on all memory

Parity or error-correction bits are normally not included when counting the
size of bytes, words, or whatever.  The machine above is described as having
8 bit bytes and 16 bit words, with a parity bit per byte.
-- 

Frank Adams                           ihnp4!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka
Ashton-Tate          52 Oakland Ave North         E. Hartford, CT 06108