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182 points Twirrim | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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donatj ◴[] No.41875031[source]
So please do excuse my ignorance, but is there a "logic" related reason other than hardware cost limitations ala "8 was cheaper than 10 for the same number of memory addresses" that bytes are 8 bits instead of 10? Genuinely curious, as a high-level dev of twenty years, I don't know why 8 was selected.

To my naive eye, It seems like moving to 10 bits per byte would be both logical and make learning the trade just a little bit easier?

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wvenable ◴[] No.41875052[source]
I'm not sure why you think being able to store values from -512 to +511 is more logical than -128 to +127?
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1. donatj ◴[] No.41875059[source]
Buckets of 10 seem more regular to beings with 10 fingers that can be up or down?
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2. wvenable ◴[] No.41875079[source]
I think 8bits (really 7 bits) was chosen because it holds a value closest to +/- 100. What is regular just depends on how you look at it.