Re:Multics Intro Course (1978)
by gumby on Thursday December 20, 2018 @09:26AM
(#18725093)
It was a 36-bit machine that supported both 6 and 9-bit bytes, though since Multics was case sensitive (the first case-sensitive/lowercase OS I'd ever used) IIRC the sixbit mode was not used by Multics.
The most popular 36-bit hardware, the PDP-6/PDP-10/DEC-20 family, supported addressable bytes from 1-63 bits in width. Doesn't it seem odd that C defaults to octal? Because of the legacy of earlier machines on which octal was more natural, C & Unix picked it up too, despite being developed on the PDP-7 and later PDP-11.
I think the 8-but byte might have started out as an IBMism.
The most popular 36-bit hardware, the PDP-6/PDP-10/DEC-20 family, supported addressable bytes from 1-63 bits in width. Doesn't it seem odd that C defaults to octal? Because of the legacy of earlier machines on which octal was more natural, C & Unix picked it up too, despite being developed on the PDP-7 and later PDP-11.
I think the 8-but byte might have started out as an IBMism.