Re: TECH: Bytes and bits

[John Cowan <snark!cowan@GVLS1.VFL.PARAMAX.COM>]

la nitcion. cusku di'e

> What of a byte? Well the Esperantists have accepted 'bajto', but alongside
> it, as a kind of protest, they also have 'bitoko': eight-bit. Given my
> distaste for PA-lujvo misused, could we admit bivjetka'u as a properly
> used lujvo (or at least, an obvious abbreviation of jetka'ubivmoi)?

Note that techspeak has two different words "byte" and "octet"; the latter
is used in telecommunications contexts to make clear that an 8-bit entity
is spoken of.  On older IBM machines, the byte size was 6 bits (and also
on the DEC PDP-8); on the PDP-10, a byte could be any size from 1 to 36
bits, and Common Lisp extends this to a fixed quantity of bits of any size;
soon we may come to see 8-bit bytes as an ancient relic, and perceive the
natural storage unit (for a character, e.g.) as 16 bits.

"bivjetka'u" is "octet".  "sosyjetka'u", anyone?

--
John Cowan      cowan@snark.thyrsus.com         ...!uunet!lock60!snark!cowan
                        e'osai ko sarji la lojban.