From:	XXguille AT XXiies DOT XXes (Guillermo Rodriguez Garcia)
Newsgroups:	comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject:	Re: Portability and size_t type related question
Date:	Wed, 19 May 1999 20:47:38 GMT
Organization:	Telefonica Transmision de Datos
Lines:	20
Message-ID:	<374322ea.2462585@noticias.iies.es>
References:	<v01540b00b36879f4a788@[145.18.167.138]>
NNTP-Posting-Host:	iies252.iies.es
Mime-Version:	1.0
X-Newsreader:	Forte Agent 1.5/32.451
To:	djgpp AT delorie DOT com
DJ-Gateway:	from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Reply-To:	djgpp AT delorie DOT com

El día Wed, 19 May 1999 16:31:58 +0200, dlanor AT dds DOT nl (Ronald
Landheer) escribió:

>>> > > Most people think that byte is a synonym for 8 bits.
>>> > I'm aware of that. But that doesn't make it correct, at least not from
>>> > a 'language-lawyer' point of view. Actually, the equivalence of 8 bits
>>> > being a byte is a rather recent invention, compared to the use of the
>>> > 'byte' in computing. There have been 7-bit bytes, 9-bit ones. 8 bits
>>I think 8 bits is minimum.
>Nope.. six bits is (for as far as I encountered).

Wrong again. There are still  a bunch of 4-bit microprocessors around
there, and again this is just a *practical* limit. You can build 1-bit
byte machines if you want. Not very useful, though.

Regards:
GUILLE
----
Guillermo Rodriguez Garcia
XXguille AT XXiies DOT XXes (ya sabes :-)

- Raw text -