Byte sizes (was Re: 2.8M 3.5' floppy

[woodelf]

William Donzelli wrote:

>>The real gotya on the old machines... UPPER CASE ASCII ONLY.
>>    
>>
>
>Actually, the switch to the eight bit byte (I am of the camp that a byte
>is 8 bits by default, then adjust to suit) was dictated not by characters,
>but by numbers - the vast majority of data in the 1960s was BCD. Six bit
>is not very efficient for handling BCD.
>  
>
Umm 6 bits is perfect for BCD, look at IBM's 1620 : 4 bits BCD, 1 bit 
sign flag/length flag 1 bit parity
 The IBM 360 and I think marketing ... bytes give you 4x bigger memory 
size, 1/4 the cost and
1/9 real $ savings over 36 bit words.
Ben alias woodelf