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From: Don_from_AZ <djatechNOSPAM@comcast.net.invalid>
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: The joy of octal
Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2024 09:16:49 -0700
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"186282@ud0s4.net" <186283@ud0s4.net> writes:

> On 11/16/24 12:24 AM, rbowman wrote:
>> On Fri, 15 Nov 2024 23:31:26 -0500, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>> 
>>>     Again, not entirely sure where the end of octal was. Many of the PDPs
>>>     used octal, and I *think* a few PIC chips. 8/16/32 kinda took over
>>>     kinda early on however.
>> chmod 4755
>> I don't know if I'd call it octal but if you were writing an
>> assembler for
>> quite a few microcontrollers the opcodes would have a pattern where source
>> ans destination registers were 0 - 7,
>
>
>   Octal does persist, sometimes in obscure ways and places.
>   It WAS kinda big for awhile - a "big step" better than
>   8-bit.
>
>   Alas don't think anymore 12 or 24 bit CPUs are
>   gonna be made. Might still have a place for some
>   higher-end microcontrollers - hell, I think Epson
>   still makes FOUR-bit microcontrollers (looked at
>   the sheet for one once, insanely capable).
>
>   Hmmm ... 256 of those 4-bitters running
>   parallel - that'd be a fun project :-)
>

GE's "GECOS" and later Honeywell's "GCOS" mainframe machines were all
36-bit words, so octal was a natural for them: 6 6-bit BCD characters or
4 9-bit bytes per 36 bit word.

-- 
-Don_from_AZ-