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GeneralRe: The top antitrust cop says big tech looks a lot like Standard Oil Pin
Kent Sharkey7-Mar-23 10:18
staffKent Sharkey7-Mar-23 10:18 
GeneralRe: The top antitrust cop says big tech looks a lot like Standard Oil Pin
den2k887-Mar-23 22:23
professionalden2k887-Mar-23 22:23 
GeneralRe: The top antitrust cop says big tech looks a lot like Standard Oil Pin
Daniel Pfeffer7-Mar-23 23:43
professionalDaniel Pfeffer7-Mar-23 23:43 
GeneralRe: The top antitrust cop says big tech looks a lot like Standard Oil Pin
den2k887-Mar-23 23:47
professionalden2k887-Mar-23 23:47 
NewsSome possible reasons for 8-bit bytes Pin
Kent Sharkey7-Mar-23 10:01
staffKent Sharkey7-Mar-23 10:01 
GeneralRe: Some possible reasons for 8-bit bytes Pin
Nelek7-Mar-23 10:39
protectorNelek7-Mar-23 10:39 
GeneralRe: Some possible reasons for 8-bit bytes Pin
Mike Hankey7-Mar-23 12:10
mveMike Hankey7-Mar-23 12:10 
GeneralRe: Some possible reasons for 8-bit bytes Pin
trønderen7-Mar-23 15:47
trønderen7-Mar-23 15:47 
On the 36-bit Univac-1100 series, you had the choice between 9-bit and 6-bit bytes. 6-bit "Fieldata" was the original character set of the EXEC-8 OS, uppercase only. 9-bit was introduced when ISO-646 (in the US of A known as ASCII) became popular.

DEC-10 and DEC-20 (mainframe relatives of the far more well-known PDP series) also had 36 bit word length, but they stuffed five 7-bit bytes to a word, with one bit to spare. They handled ISO-646 from the beginning, but lots of programmers thought it was an odd format.

Note that both U-1100 and DEC-10/20 were word addressable in memory, not byte addressable. Memory size was commonly expressed in K (you didn't have machines with Mega-memories then!), meaning K-s of addressable units, i.e. words. Then came the IBM 360 architecture in 1964, the first major CPU family that was octet addressable. (Even the IBM predecessors to the 360, the 704/709/7090, were 36 bits word addressable machines). IBM marketed their 360 memory by the number of addressable units, misleading lots of customer to think it was super-cheap compared to e.g. Univac or DEC - but 1 K of IBM octets were just 22% as much memory (measured in bits) compared to the Univac/DEC 36 bit words.

In the 1960-70s, IBM had something like 80% of the computer market in the US of A. They were not quite that dominating in Europe, but still they were The dominating manufacturer. When IBM went for 8 bit bytes, everybody else followed suit, at least for new architectures.

(One are were IBM did not manage to dominate the world: Their EBCDIC character set never was adopted by others - except for communication with IBM mainframes. I see two major reasons for that: There were more national variants of EBCDIC than we have Linux file systems today. And, for historical reasons, A-Z did not fill 26 consecutive code values - mixed in with the alphabetics were other, non-alphabetic characters. Working with ISO-646 was just so much more convenient!)
GeneralRe: Some possible reasons for 8-bit bytes Pin
obermd7-Mar-23 15:49
obermd7-Mar-23 15:49 
NewsTech jobs: No rush back to the office for software developers as salaries reach $180,000 Pin
Kent Sharkey7-Mar-23 10:01
staffKent Sharkey7-Mar-23 10:01 
GeneralRe: Tech jobs: No rush back to the office for software developers as salaries reach $180,000 Pin
Nelek7-Mar-23 10:37
protectorNelek7-Mar-23 10:37 
GeneralRe: Tech jobs: No rush back to the office for software developers as salaries reach $180,000 Pin
Nemanja Trifunovic7-Mar-23 12:44
Nemanja Trifunovic7-Mar-23 12:44 
NewsThe most boring number in the world is... Pin
Kent Sharkey7-Mar-23 9:46
staffKent Sharkey7-Mar-23 9:46 
GeneralRe: The most boring number in the world is... Pin
Joe Woodbury7-Mar-23 15:32
professionalJoe Woodbury7-Mar-23 15:32 
GeneralRe: The most boring number in the world is... Pin
obermd8-Mar-23 3:30
obermd8-Mar-23 3:30 
GeneralRe: The most boring number in the world is... Pin
trønderen7-Mar-23 15:51
trønderen7-Mar-23 15:51 
JokeRe: The most boring number in the world is... Pin
Daniel Pfeffer7-Mar-23 21:49
professionalDaniel Pfeffer7-Mar-23 21:49 
NewsComplex oxides could power the computers of the future Pin
Kent Sharkey7-Mar-23 8:16
staffKent Sharkey7-Mar-23 8:16 
NewsThe impact of developer happiness on productivity Pin
Kent Sharkey7-Mar-23 8:01
staffKent Sharkey7-Mar-23 8:01 
GeneralRe: The impact of developer happiness on productivity Pin
Nelek7-Mar-23 10:34
protectorNelek7-Mar-23 10:34 
NewsDragon Programming Language Pin
Kent Sharkey7-Mar-23 7:46
staffKent Sharkey7-Mar-23 7:46 
GeneralRe: Dragon Programming Language Pin
obermd7-Mar-23 8:39
obermd7-Mar-23 8:39 
GeneralRe: Dragon Programming Language Pin
Kent Sharkey7-Mar-23 8:43
staffKent Sharkey7-Mar-23 8:43 
GeneralRe: Dragon Programming Language Pin
obermd7-Mar-23 15:58
obermd7-Mar-23 15:58 
GeneralRe: Dragon Programming Language Pin
Marc Clifton7-Mar-23 8:53
mvaMarc Clifton7-Mar-23 8:53 

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