19 May
2020
19 May
'20
3:24 a.m.
On Monday, 18 May 2020 at 9:58:26 -0400, Doug McIlroy wrote:
It seems that even then it was of variable size. From G.R. Trimble,
"STRETCH," Computer Usage Communique, 1963,
(http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Computer_Usage_Company/cu…):
the words can be composed of "bytes" with from one to eight bits in
a byte.
There's more at https://people.cs.clemson.edu/~mark/stretch.html.
[A]lthough
these days "byte" is synonymous with "8 bits", historically it
meant "the number of bits needed to store a single character".
It depends upon what you mean by "historically". Originally "byte"
was coined to refer to 8 bit addressable units on the IBM 7030
"Stretch" computer. The term was perpetuated for the 360 family of
computers. Only
later did people begin to attribute the meaning to non-addressable
6- or 9-bit units on 36- and 18-bit machines.
Viewed over history, the latter usage was transient and colloquial
Transient maybe, but UNIVAC used the term in its documentation of the
1100 series. The 1106/1108/1110 could access (but not directly
address) 6, 9 and 12 bit "bytes".
Greg
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