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From: Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com>
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: byte me, The joy of FORTRAN
Date: Fri, 28 Feb 2025 12:42:54 -0700
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John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> wrote:
> According to Peter Flass  <peter_flass@yahoo.com>:
>>> These days we think that all bytes are 8 bits but in that era 6 or 7 or 9 were
>>> all common. I don't ever recall writing code on a PDP-10 that used 8 bit bytes
>>> other than maybe unpacking magtapes from IBM systems.
>> 
>> Multics used 8-bit bytes on a 36-bit Honeywell 6000. The developers tried
>> to discourage the use of 9-bit bytes - I was told that “nothing” used them,
>> but I found out WordPerfect used them for metacharacters.
> 
> That's odd. I am reasonably sure that the 635 only had hardware
> support for 6 and 9 bit bytes and I don't think the 645 or 6000
> changed that. I suppose it could have been a software convention,
> don't put anything in the high bit of a 9 bit byte or you'll be sorry.
> 

I think so.

-- 
Pete