Terry Yager
Veteran Member
OK, a quickie: How many bits are in a byte? Here's another fundament on which it's difficult to get the "authorities" to agree. I was taught that the correct answer to this question is "it depends on the word length". My definition is that a byte is half a word, so that in a 16-bit computer, a byte is 8 bits. When you get into other word lengths, the byte length changes, f'rinstance, in a 12-bit system, like the DEC PDP-11 the byte length should be 6 bits. (Any DEC programmers out there care to confirm this? What is the convention in the DEC world?)
Another definition I have seen is that a byte is enough bits to contain one character, meaning (usually) 8 bits, but ASCII is actually a 7-bit standard. Very confusing...
--T
Another definition I have seen is that a byte is enough bits to contain one character, meaning (usually) 8 bits, but ASCII is actually a 7-bit standard. Very confusing...
--T