C++ proposal: There are exactly 8 bits in a byte

But think of ternary computers!

Doesn't matter ternary computers just have ternary bits, 8 of them ;)

Supposedly, "bit" is short for "binary digit", so we'd need a separate term for "ternary digit", but I don't wanna go there.

Ternary computers have 8 tits to a byte.

The standard term is "trit" because they didn't want to go there.

The prefix is tri-, not ti- so I don’t think there was any concern of going anywhere.

It’s tricycle and tripod, not ticycle.

Should be either 9 or 27 I'd think.

Why can’t it be 8?, the fact that it’s a trit doesn’t put any constraint on the byte (tryte ? size). You could actually make it 5 or 6 trits (~9.5 bits) for similar information density. The Setun used 6 trit addressable units.

Might be advantageous to collect trits in powers of 3, like how bits are collected in powers of 2.

For example, if you want to address a trit in a tryte of 8 trits, you can use 2 trits for that, but you'll have a value left over. Seems a bit cleaner if trytes hold 9 trits.