character codes, was RE: Really stupid PDP assembler question

From: Tom Jennings <tomj_at_wps.com>
Date: Sun Jun 27 02:43:28 2004

On Sat, 2004-06-26 at 14:41, Tony Duell wrote:
> >
> > On Fri, 2004-06-25 at 16:47, David V. Corbin wrote:
> >
> > > "What significant advantage did octal have over hex notation (especially in
> > > the late '60s timeframe)?"

THere is ABSOLUTELY NO advantage to one scheme over another, globally.
Locally, there may be, eg. within a given machine architecture. Remember
"split octal" in the 8080 world? A horrible joke, merely because the
Intel designers put stuff on byte/nybble boundaries. It doesn't have to
be that way, it can be anything.

> Remember this predates dot matrix printers on calculators. The printers
> we're talking about had a typewheel with perhaps 12 positions round it
> (0-9, decimal point, minus sign). Either one per column or one that was
> shifted across the paper.

Now I'm a bit unclear -- before dot matrix took over the world, print
mechanism schemes were almost countless -- belts, bands, drums, baskets,
cylinders, wheels, daisies, cups, raster, XY, whatever -- and notation
for whatever wacko scheme chosen would be utterly arbitrary.

(I miss all the assorted mechanism, it was fun to see and listen to. I
don't miss unreliability, incompatibility, mass, cost, ... :-)
Received on Sun Jun 27 2004 - 02:43:28 BST