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Subject: FTP advisory messages
Message-ID: <8709172351.AA10074@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Date: Thu, 17-Sep-87 19:51:33 EDT
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Posted: Thu Sep 17 19:51:33 1987
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From: rick@seismo.CSS.GOV (Rick Adams)
>The wonderful thing about UNIX is that it runs on almost any hardware.
>What I really want to know in this example is the packing (and
>possibly byte ordering) of characters in a word. I don't believe that
>all Unix implementations are 8 bits = 1 character = 1 byte. I think the
>C/70 has a 9 bit byte or something. It runs Unix (I don't have my manuals
>with me, but you get the idea)
>
>If SITE works (and I'm told that it does finally work), then you could
>do something like "SITE 8BITBYTES" and decide whether to go into binary
>mode based on that.

It's not even obvious that the particular operating system was ever
germaine, that may have been a false start (as you seem to point out
in your example.) An image file between a VAX/VMS and VAX/UNIX system
will work in image mode as will a 68K and IBM370, something more
abstract needs to be developed to cover the cases.

Perhaps an asymmetrical psuedo-bitstring who's bit order and length
can be used to infer the architecture? Something like:

VAX,NS32k:	"10010110 10010110 10010110 10010110"
68K,IBM370:	"01101001 01101001 01101001 01101001"
PDP10:		"(?just 36 1s?)"
PDP11:		"10010110 10010110"

etc. Perhaps it could be optionally presented in Hex or Octal using
some suitable escape ("0x9696 9696 9696 9696") if that were desired.
This could be prefixed by the OS if desired "SITE UNIX 1001..." and a
lot would be known. A better binary number than my example is probably
needed, but the idea should be clear.

The nice thing about it is the default is easy (don't do image.)

The only thing that bothers me (I guess) is that the scientific
community might have chosen floating point format to normalize upon.
And somewhere down there a whole different project lies.

	-Barry Shein, Boston University