On Mon, Jun 3, 2013 at 7:31 AM, Grant Edwards <invalid@invalid.invalid>wrote:
> That's a common assumption, but historically, a "byte" was merely the > smallest addressable unit of memory. The size of a "byte" on widely > used used CPUs ranged from 4 bits to 60 bits. > > Quoting from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte > > "The size of the byte has historically been hardware > dependent and no definitive standards existed that mandated the > size." > > That's why IEEE standards always use the word "octet" when referring a > value containing 8 bits. > When I was a Freshman in college, I used a CDC Cyber a lot; it had 6 bit bytes and 60 bit words. This was in 1985. Today though, it would be difficult to sell a conventional (Von Neumann) computer that didn't have 8 bit bytes. Quantum computers would still sell if they were odd this way - they're going to be really different anyway.
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