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Path: utzoo!mnetor!yetti!geac!daveb
From: daveb@geac.UUCP (Brown)
Newsgroups: comp.std.internat,sci.lang
Subject: Re: accented alphabets and computers
Message-ID: <1496@geac.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 28-Sep-87 10:35:33 EDT
Article-I.D.: geac.1496
Posted: Mon Sep 28 10:35:33 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 29-Sep-87 01:21:20 EDT
References: <120@quick.COM> <1430@geac.UUCP> <2418@mmintl.UUCP>
Reply-To: daveb@geac.UUCP (Dave Collier-Brown)
Organization: The little blue rock next to that twinkly star.
Lines: 23
Xref: mnetor comp.std.internat:265 sci.lang:1481

In article <2418@mmintl.UUCP> franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams) writes:
>In article <1430@geac.UUCP> daveb@geac.UUCP (Dave Collier-Brown) writes:
>>a 100% increase in disk space *has* been accepted by even
>>penny-pinching commercial customers.... Don't forget, all of the old
>>mainframes used 4-bit BCD at one time or another, and are now using
>>6-bit, 7-bit ascii and 8-bit ebcdic.
>
>Sorry, but 4-bit BCD uses 4 bits to store a digit, and 2 digits to store a
>character: voila, 8 bit characters.
>

  Oh dear, think I had a brain-fault.
  When I posted that I was thinking of excess-three, which only requires
5 bits.  Not bcd, which requires 6 for the alphabetic extension.
  Therefore, the first line above should be "a 33% increase in
disk...", unless you are on a 36-bit Honeywell, where it's a 50%
increase (4 bytes/word, down from 6).

-- 
 David Collier-Brown.                 {mnetor|yetti|utgpu}!geac!daveb
 Geac Computers International Inc.,   |  Computer Science loses its
 350 Steelcase Road,Markham, Ontario, |  memory (if not its mind)
 CANADA, L3R 1B3 (416) 475-0525 x3279 |  every 6 months.