Integers vs. Long Integers Was: RE: [AccessD] Global Variable

Stuart McLachlan stuart at lexacorp.com.pg
Thu May 19 17:26:48 CDT 2005


On 19 May 2005 at 12:33, John W. Colby wrote:

> 
> >Look up Byte :-)
> 
> Yep, I know about byte.
> 

Clearly you don't. 

You are calling your 3 bit group  a Byte because you were using octal 
notation and a 3 bit group is represented by a single octal character.   By 
the same reasoning a Byte on your current PC is 4 bits  because we commonly 
use hexadecimal notation which allows a 4 bit group to be represented by 
one character.  

External representation of the bit pattern has nothing to do with the 
meaning of a Byte.  

Did you ever set a single group of 3 bits  by itself or was it always 
something like "777" to enter a character/opcode etc?

Since 36 bit word systems generally used  *multiples* of 3 bits for a byte 
(commonly 9 but sonetime 6 or even 15),  using Octal notation to represent 
bit patterns made sense just as using four-bit  hexadecimal notation makes 
sense if you are using 8 or any other multiple of 2 for your byte.














-- 
Stuart





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