Computer Scientists’ Trivia

Re:Computer Scientists’ Trivia by jwilk on Thursday February 02, 2017 @11:09AM (#13551542)

Perhaps your notion of what a byte is different, but according to the C99 standard:

- sizeof returns size in bytes;

- sizeof (char) == 1;

- one byte has CHAR_BIT bits;

- CHAR_BIT >= 8.

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Re:Computer Scientists’ Trivia by John23832 on Thursday February 02, 2017 @12:07PM (#13552141)

> - one byte has CHAR_BIT bits;

Can you link a reference to this? Seems backwards/weird.

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Re:Computer Scientists’ Trivia by AnimalMuppet on Thursday February 02, 2017 @12:04PM (#13552107)

So per C99, a byte can have more than 8 bits? My mind boggles...

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Re:Computer Scientists’ Trivia by Someone on Thursday February 02, 2017 @12:49PM (#13552645)

For 36-bit CPUs, the 9-bit byte was a natural choice (as was storing 6 characters of a more limited character set in a 36-bit word)

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Re:Computer Scientists’ Trivia by AnimalMuppet on Thursday February 02, 2017 @01:04PM (#13552812)

Ah, yes, 36-bit. I had forgotten about that, despite my mother having worked on such systems.

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