Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!mcgill-vision!mouse
From: mouse@mcgill-vision.UUCP (der Mouse)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Absolute size of 'short'
Message-ID: <1285@mcgill-vision.UUCP>
Date: 2 Sep 88 06:48:13 GMT
References: <214@ISIDAPS5.UUCP> <9641@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> <62505@sun.uucp> <8398@smoke.ARPA>
Organization: McGill University, Montreal
Lines: 22

In article <8398@smoke.ARPA>, gwyn@smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn ) writes:
> In article <1382@ficc.uu.net> peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) writes:
>> I wanna say 'int:9 color' or 'int color:9' and only use up one byte
>> on a Honeywell or Sperry.
> Yes!  It annoys me that people have been brainwashed into thinking
> that a "byte" is necessarily 8 bits and that there is something
> special about that chunk size other than its current popularity.

Well, lots of things work out nicelier (:-) when the chunk sizes are
powers of two.  I wouldn't mind 16-bit "byte"s, but I sure wouldn't be
fond of 9-bit "byte"s.

> It is the BIT that is truly fundamental;

Tell that to someone with a decimal-based calculator.  (Yes, I know the
dpANS requires unsigned integers to behave "as if" binary were the
basic numbering system.)

By the way, does anyone know of a non-mechanical digital calculator or
computer that isn't essentially binary?

					der Mouse