Subject: Re: [stella] What's magic about a byte? From: Ruffin Bailey <rufwork@xxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2005 21:57:02 -0400 |
On Apr 13, 2005, at 4:23 PM, Adam Wozniak wrote: > On Mon, 11 Apr 2005, Ruffin Bailey wrote: >> Okay, we all know that every bit is sacred, but, out of curiosity, why >> are there 8 bits in a byte as opposed to 10 or 3? > > 8 is a power of 2. 2^3 = 8 > > 4 is also a power of 2, but it's too small to represent a character. > 16 is also a power of 2, but it's way overkill to represnt a character. Why would the number of bits in a byte have to have anything to do with powers of 2? The max number, whether 7 bit, 13 bit, or 8 bit would still be a binary number. ?? Ruffin Bailey Archives (includes files) at http://www.biglist.com/lists/stella/archives/ Unsub & more at http://stella.biglist.com
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