A few questiosn about encoding

[Roy Smith]

In article <kphul7$74q$1 at reader1.panix.com>,
 Grant Edwards <invalid at invalid.invalid> wrote:

> There is some ambiguity in the term "byte".  It used to mean the
> smallest addressable unit of memory (which varied in the past -- at
> one point, both 20 and 60 bit "bytes" were common).

I would have defined it more like, "some arbitrary collection of 
adjacent bits which hold some useful value".  Doesn't need to be 
addressable, nor does it need to be the smallest such thing.

For example, on the pdp-10 (36 bit word), it was common to treat a word 
as either four 9-bit bytes, or five 7-bit bytes (with one bit left 
over), depending on what you were doing.  And, of course, a nybble was 
something smaller than a byte!

And, yes, especially in networking, everybody talks about octets when 
they want to make sure people understand what they mean.