Unicode questions

[Steve Holden]

On 10/25/2010 2:36 PM, Terry Reedy wrote:
> On 10/25/2010 2:33 AM, Steve Holden wrote:
>> On 10/25/2010 1:42 AM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>>> In message<mailman.31.1287517442.2218.python-list at python.org>, Petite
>>> Abeille wrote:
>>>
>>>> Characters vs. Bytes
>>>
>>> And why do certain people insist on referring to bytes as “octets”?
>>
>> Because back in the old days bytes were of varying sizes on different
>> architectures - indeed the DECSystem-10 and -20 had instructions that
>> could be parameterized as to byte size. So octet was an unambiguous term
>> for the (now standard) 8-bit byte.
> 
> As I remember, there were machines (CDC? Burroughs?) with 6-bit
> char/bytes: 26 upper-case letters, 10 digits, 24 symbols and control chars.

Yes, and DEC used the same (?) code, calling it SIXBIT. Since their
systems had 36-bit words it packed in very nicely.

regards
 Steve
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