bit-widths, was Re: HP Laserjet ..again....

From: Paul Koning <pkoning_at_equallogic.com>
Date: Wed Sep 22 16:07:31 2004

>>>>> "William" == William Donzelli <aw288_at_osfn.org> writes:

>> Not in this community! Newfangled usage, yes.
 William> Well, if newfangled means after 7 April 1964.

Is that when IBM did the 360?

But at that time they were merely one of the users of the term "byte",
and arguably the odd man out by applying it to 8 bits rather than the
more common 6. It wasn't until all the other machines had disappeared
that you could argue "of course byte means 8 bits". So, perhaps,
around 1985 or so (when the PDP-10 pretty much disappeared).

Or perhaps not yet. There are still machines in production use where
byte does not mean 8 bits. Cyber mainframes, for example.

     paul
Received on Wed Sep 22 2004 - 16:07:31 BST