Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!athena.mit.edu!peter
From: peter@athena.mit.edu (Peter J Desnoyers)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: standard size names
Message-ID: <3662@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU>
Date: 11 Mar 88 15:08:11 GMT
References: <2246@saturn.ucsc.edu> <28200121@ccvaxa>
Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU
Reply-To: peter@athena.mit.edu (Peter J Desnoyers)
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Lines: 19
Summary: octlet????

In the standards world:

   1 bit is a bit
   8 bits is an octet (god help us, not an 'octlet')
   and that's unfortunately all.

Of course, in information theory:

   1 nat = 2.718282... bits    (the 'natural' digit, instead of 'binary'
				digit - take the natural log when 
				calculating information instead of log2)

but this isn't a useful word length for computers. (You don't even see
it in many information theory papers)

Anyway, _please_ don't call 8 bits an `octlet'. It already has a name.


				Peter Desnoyers