Bytesize (was: Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers (was: OT email response format)) - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

22 Apr 2002

...
     9bits was the
byte size for the PDP-10, I believe IBM360 and CDC6600 
 Na, the /360 was a plain 8 Bit/Byte machine, but I think you're
 right about the CDC. AFAIR there was a Bull machine using 9 Bit Bytes,
 and 18 Bit integers.  You sure about the CDC-6600? The complete word length was 60
bits, and I
 seem to recall that for the purposes of characters, there were 10 6 bit
 characters stored per word. http://www.scd.ucar.edu/computers/gallery/cdc/6600.html 
 The PPUs were 12 bitters.

 Sorry, yes, I should think before writeing. Of course,
 the CDCs used weired 6 Bit teleype codings for character
 representation. 
The CDC 6000 Series and its follow-ons were machines that had a
Central processor with a 60-bit word and Peripheral & Control Processors
that had a 12-bit word (ignoring the 64-bit word and 16-bit words
of the 180 Series).

As most definitions of "byte" revolve around it being a basic
unit of *storage*, I would point out that 12-bits was the smallest
unit of storage that could be manipulated without shifting & masking.

Its *character* size, therefore, being 6-bits, was different from its
*byte* size...

This made implementing a C compiler a large headache, I'm told...

-dq