3 ms·

So that I can again drop the link that busts the "8 bits per byte"-myth ;) http://www.lispworks.com/documentation/HyperSpec/Body/f_by_by.htm#byte http://www.lis

by jlg23 6y ago

So that I can again drop the link that busts the "8 bits per byte"-myth ;) http://www.lispworks.com/documentation/HyperSpec/Body/f_by_by.htm#byte http://www.lispworks.com/documentation/HyperSpec/Body/f_by_b...

samatman 6y ago
I've been around long enough to have had to roll my eyes and say "fine, octet" in conversation. But I'm grateful that it's mostly stopped happening, let's not revive it!
FridayoLeary 6y ago
for fellow dumbells who can't even the their laces may i ask; eh? Can you elaborate? My older relative who studied computers thought byte= 8 bits. I also thought so. My ego is taking a hit tonight.
- bombcar 6y ago
  A byte is a collection of bits - now almost universally standardized on 8 bits because of network protocols and encodings - but older computers the byte wasn’t as important as THE WORD which was the bit width the machine could process at once. We now refer to 128bit instructions but those are more properly an instruction with a 128bit word. Lisp provides the ability for arbitrarily defined bytes.
  - FridayoLeary 6y ago
    so i wasn't totally wrong. It's mainly semantics. Since i'm here, why do most storage mediums i.e usb, phones sd ostensibly follow this method (1gb 2,4,8!,16,32 etc) and why are they almost always a few hundreds mb off?
    - philwelch 6y ago
      A kilobyte can be defined as either 1024 bytes or 1000 bytes. Similarly, a megabyte could be 1024 kilobytes or 1000 kilobytes, and so forth. Really, 1024 is the number that makes more sense, but hard drive manufacturers promoted the “1000 bytes” interpretation so they could advertise their hard drives as having more megabytes. Some standards organizations tried to “solve” the issue by defining a “kibibyte” as 1024 bytes and so forth, but you only ever see those in abbreviated forms (ie KiB). I personally hate that convention; the words are aesthetically atrocious and were only invented to please pedants (who annoy me) and dishonest marketing people (whom I detest even more).
      - atat7024 6y ago
        Isn't this the difference between speed notation and size notation?
- D-Coder 6y ago
  Some older machines had different byte lengths. I believe Burroughs had 7-bit bytes. PDP-10s had 36-bit words which could be divided into any byte size that you liked; 7 bits was common, but if you needed them you could get 1-bit bytes, 6 bit (which was used to encode filenames), 8 bits, whatever.
sammorrowdrums 6y ago
True, however as you are no doubt aware, one more digit or one less would double / half the karma requirement which is somewhat extreme, and it would no longer be representable by two hex digits. The CSS colours are specifically 3 octets written as 2 digit hex, so you so while I like the broader idea that "it's a byte of karma" is sufficient, knowledge of 2 digit hex codes also applies to the privilege directly. Plus, non-standard byte lengths would be a much more niche reference, and I don't think people would get it.

by jlg23 6y ago

samatman 6y ago

I've been around long enough to have had to roll my eyes and say "fine, octet" in conversation. But I'm grateful that it's mostly stopped happening, let's not revive it!

FridayoLeary 6y ago

for fellow dumbells who can't even the their laces may i ask; eh? Can you elaborate? My older relative who studied computers thought byte= 8 bits. I also thought so. My ego is taking a hit tonight.

bombcar 6y ago
A byte is a collection of bits - now almost universally standardized on 8 bits because of network protocols and encodings - but older computers the byte wasn’t as important as THE WORD which was the bit width the machine could process at once. We now refer to 128bit instructions but those are more properly an instruction with a 128bit word. Lisp provides the ability for arbitrarily defined bytes.
- FridayoLeary 6y ago
  so i wasn't totally wrong. It's mainly semantics. Since i'm here, why do most storage mediums i.e usb, phones sd ostensibly follow this method (1gb 2,4,8!,16,32 etc) and why are they almost always a few hundreds mb off?
  - philwelch 6y ago
    A kilobyte can be defined as either 1024 bytes or 1000 bytes. Similarly, a megabyte could be 1024 kilobytes or 1000 kilobytes, and so forth. Really, 1024 is the number that makes more sense, but hard drive manufacturers promoted the “1000 bytes” interpretation so they could advertise their hard drives as having more megabytes. Some standards organizations tried to “solve” the issue by defining a “kibibyte” as 1024 bytes and so forth, but you only ever see those in abbreviated forms (ie KiB). I personally hate that convention; the words are aesthetically atrocious and were only invented to please pedants (who annoy me) and dishonest marketing people (whom I detest even more).
    - atat7024 6y ago
      Isn't this the difference between speed notation and size notation?
D-Coder 6y ago
Some older machines had different byte lengths. I believe Burroughs had 7-bit bytes. PDP-10s had 36-bit words which could be divided into any byte size that you liked; 7 bits was common, but if you needed them you could get 1-bit bytes, 6 bit (which was used to encode filenames), 8 bits, whatever.

sammorrowdrums 6y ago

True, however as you are no doubt aware, one more digit or one less would double / half the karma requirement which is somewhat extreme, and it would no longer be representable by two hex digits. The CSS colours are specifically 3 octets written as 2 digit hex, so you so while I like the broader idea that "it's a byte of karma" is sufficient, knowledge of 2 digit hex codes also applies to the privilege directly. Plus, non-standard byte lengths would be a much more niche reference, and I don't think people would get it.