Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by NEBULA.SYSTEMSZ.CS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Mon, 16 Aug 1993 13:53:57 -0400 Received: from YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU by eli.CS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Mon, 16 Aug 1993 13:53:51 -0400 Message-Id: <199308161753.AA14061@eli.CS.YALE.EDU> Received: from YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU by YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 0021; Mon, 16 Aug 93 13:52:23 EDT Received: from YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@YALEVM) by YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 6733; Mon, 16 Aug 1993 13:48:56 -0400 Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1993 12:26:05 -0400 Reply-To: John Cowan Sender: Lojban list From: John Cowan Subject: Re: TECH: Bytes and bits X-To: Lojban List To: Erik Rauch In-Reply-To: <9308141251.AA00448@relay1.UU.NET> from "Nick Nicholas" at Aug 14, 93 07:46:23 pm Status: O X-Status: X-From-Space-Date: Mon Aug 16 08:26:05 1993 X-From-Space-Address: @YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET la nitcion. cusku di'e > What of a byte? Well the Esperantists have accepted 'bajto', but alongside > it, as a kind of protest, they also have 'bitoko': eight-bit. Given my > distaste for PA-lujvo misused, could we admit bivjetka'u as a properly > used lujvo (or at least, an obvious abbreviation of jetka'ubivmoi)? Note that techspeak has two different words "byte" and "octet"; the latter is used in telecommunications contexts to make clear that an 8-bit entity is spoken of. On older IBM machines, the byte size was 6 bits (and also on the DEC PDP-8); on the PDP-10, a byte could be any size from 1 to 36 bits, and Common Lisp extends this to a fixed quantity of bits of any size; soon we may come to see 8-bit bytes as an ancient relic, and perceive the natural storage unit (for a character, e.g.) as 16 bits. "bivjetka'u" is "octet". "sosyjetka'u", anyone? -- John Cowan cowan@snark.thyrsus.com ...!uunet!lock60!snark!cowan e'osai ko sarji la lojban.