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From: mark@ems.MN.ORG (Mark H. Colburn)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: byte != 8 bits
Message-ID: <418@ems.MN.ORG>
Date: Sun, 2-Aug-87 20:34:50 EDT
Article-I.D.: ems.418
Posted: Sun Aug  2 20:34:50 1987
Date-Received: Mon, 3-Aug-87 02:37:51 EDT
References: <218@astra.necisa.oz> <142700010@tiger.UUCP> <2792@phri.UUCP> <857@bsu-cs.UUCP> <911@bsu-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: mark@ems.UUCP (Mark H. Colburn)
Organization: EMS/McGraw-Hill, Eden Pairie, MN
Lines: 27

In article <911@bsu-cs.UUCP> dhesi@bsu-cs.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi) writes:
>In article <857@bsu-cs.UUCP> I wrote:
>This is true, but it does not affect my claim.  A byte *is* exactly
>8 bits.


	ARGH!!!!!!!

	NO!  An 'octet' is exactly eight bits, a byte is whatever size
	corresponds to the machine on which you are working.  Saying that
	a byte is 8 bits is like saying a word is *EXACTLY* 16 bits!

	Do any hear any BOOs out there from the people working on 680X0,
	or Crays, or Amdahls or ...????

	The ASCII character set is exactly 8 bits, true, but that does not
	correspond to byte size.  The standard transfer data size for most
	telecommunications protocols uses 8-bit characters, true, but that,
	again, does not correspond to anything.  And, again, *MOST* machines
	these days use 8-bit bytes, but, that does not mean that all bytes
	are 8 bits long.

	Drop it, your wrong!

-- 
Mark H. Colburn    DOMAIN: mark@ems.MN.ORG 
EMS/McGraw-Hill      UUCP: ihnp4!meccts!ems!mark      AT&T: (612) 829-8200