[ih] bytes [Re: "network unix"]

[jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)]

    > From: Brian E Carpenter

    > I think the question was really settled in April 1964 when the IBM 360
    > was announced.

I too was going to mention the 360. I'm not sure we can elucidate _precisely_
what led to the focus on 8-bit bytes, so questions like 'would the 360 _on
its own_ have done it' may be forever unknowable. But I do think the 360 was
one of the biggest factors.

The other one I'd point to is ASCII. Technically, one only needs 7 bits for
ASCII, but 7 is odd (although there's no particular reason one couldn't have
odd-length bytes, but it just feels, well, odd), and so I think ASCII was a
big driver to 8-bit bytes; it certainly knocked out 6-bit bytes.

And probably the power-of-two was an influence, too.

    > I think the byte stabilised at 8 bits in my mind because of the PDP-11,
    > rapidly followed by the Intel 8080 and Motorola 6800.

The PDP-11 was certainly a factor (I think at one point, before micros
appeared, it was the best-selling computer, in terms of numbers, in history).

I'm not so sure about the micros - I think they may have 'put the last nail
in', but I think they were more of a recognition of reality, than a pusher
thereof.


    > From: Jack Haverty <jack at 3kitty.org>

    > Wow, people are actually reading this stuff... 

Hey, you're putting the energy in to write it, the least we can do is read! :-)

	Noel