Re: questions about bits and bytes

[Rich Graves <llurch@networking.stanford.edu>]

On Wed, 10 Apr 1996, jim bell wrote:

> >Be careful writing code - sometimes a byte is -128 to 127 instead of 0
> >to 255. Also, there are machines (mostly old kinky ones) that use
> >bytes of sizes other than 8 bits.
>
> No, Bill, a "byte" has ALWAYS been 8-bits.

Not that it really matters, but you're wrong; if you're talking about an
asynchronous data stream, a byte is however many bits it takes to express
one character. If you're using ASCII, it's 8; if you're using Baudot, it's
5. If you're talking about data in computers, then I think you're right, a
byte is always 8 bits.

-rich