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Re: bytes vs. octets

This page is part of the web mail archives of SRFI 56 from before July 7th, 2015. The new archives for SRFI 56 contain all messages, not just those from before July 7th, 2015.



At 15 Sep 2004 11:53:58 -0700, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote:
> 
> Alex Shinn <foof@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> 
> > I've given it a lot of thought and have decided to stick to *-byte in
> > the names as there is simply no advantage in changing to octet.  In
> > this day and age "byte" is universally accepted as being 8 bits and
> > any argument that it could be misinterpreted is simply not
> > realistic.
> 
> What do you mean my "universally accepted", given that you have seen
> it not accepted on this very list?

I have only seen evidence that in those machines for which the
smallest addressable memory unit is not 8 bits they still use "byte"
to refer to 8 bits.  This is the modern definition of byte.

-- 
Alex