Mike,
They did define it as "the smallest addressable unit of storage" but even on
the S/360 it was not always 8 bits. The S/360 also ran 1401/1410 emulation
and in that mode the byte was 6 bits of data + a word mark. Rather than
EBCDIC is was BCD.
Carl
-----Original Message-----
From: unicode-bounce@unicode.org [mailto:unicode-bounce@unicode.org]On
Behalf Of J M Sykes
Sent: Friday, March 23, 2001 9:58 AM
To: Carl W. Brown; unicode@unicode.org
Subject: [unicode] Re: UCS-2 Files
>
> A byte may be 8 bits now but it was not always 8 bits.
>
Au contraire!
It was the designers of System/360 who invented the word "byte" to mean the
smallest addressable unit of storage, in their case 8 bits. It is others who
have appropriated the word for their own purposes, as has happened with so
many words since language was invented.
Remember Humpty Dumpty!
Mike.
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