Subject: Re: [stella] What's magic about a byte? From: Ruffin Bailey <rufwork@xxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2005 00:30:17 -0400 |
On Apr 13, 2005, at 11:57 PM, Chris Wilkson wrote: > On Wed, 13 Apr 2005, Ruffin Bailey wrote: > >> 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. ?? > > Because decoders and encoders using bits as control lines will always > address 2^n locations. Either you implement them, or you don't. But > if you need 5 states, you need 3 bits to represent that. Then you have > created 3 bogus states. You need to define them or else "Bad Things" > can happen. You can define them by hardwiring, but you might as well > make them useful if you can. > > In the case of decimals digits, you need 4 bits to encode each > character > with. If your system is already 6 bits, just to encode the text > characters, > you're wasting 2 bits when doing BCD. You might as well make your word > 8 bits wide so you can encode 2 digits without waste. ... thus earning the mit.edu behind his email nick. ;^) Ruffin Bailey Archives (includes files) at http://www.biglist.com/lists/stella/archives/ Unsub & more at http://stella.biglist.com
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