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

(www.open-std.org)
182 points Twirrim | 1 comments | 17 Oct 24 22:21 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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pjdesno ◴[17 Oct 24 23:31 UTC] No.41874875[source]▶
During an internship in 1986 I wrote C code for a machine with 10-bit bytes, the BBN C/70. It was a horrible experience, and the existence of the machine in the first place was due to a cosmic accident of the negative kind.
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Taniwha ◴[18 Oct 24 00:32 UTC] No.41875248[source]▶
I've worked on a machine with 9-bit bytes (and 81-bit instructions) and others with 6-bit ones - nether has a C compiler
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1. corysama ◴[18 Oct 24 02:57 UTC] No.41875983[source]▶
The Nintendo64 had 9-bit RAM. But, C viewed it as 8 bit. The 9th bit was only there for the RSP (GPU).