[OT] Why is it called string?

[John Baxter]

In article <bidpaf$fm5$1 at atlantis.news.tpi.pl>,
 Jarek Zgoda <jzgoda at gazeta.usun.pl> wrote:

> Piet van Oostrum <piet at cs.uu.nl> pisze:
> 
> >>> My CS professor would insist that a byte is a collection of bits, and not
> >>> necessarily eight.  There are machines which do not have 8-bit addressable
> >>> bytes.
> > 
> >JZ> I remember that "byte" in French is expressed as "octet", even if it has
> >JZ> only 7 bits...
> > 
> > Are you sure. Several international organisations use the word 'octet' in
> > their official specifications, to make sure that an 8-bit byte is meant.
> 
> I cann't recall the machine I'm referring to (it was product of Bull),
> but I am sure that lecturer called 7 bit units as "octets".

The "oct" prefix, which reasonable people might expect to mean "8" has 
been abused for several years.  One evening at WTBS (the MIT version, 
before the sailor guy from Atlanta bought the callsign from my 
successors), I soldered up an 11-pin octal plug.  Then I unwired it, 
installed the plug cover, and soldered it up again.

Then, I unwired it, turned the plug cover around the proper way, and 
wired it up yet again.  [Pretty good lesson:  I haven't forgotten a plug 
cover or gotten one backwards since.]

  --John

-- 
Email to above address discarded by provider's server.  Don't bother sending.