Talk:36-bit computing

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It also allowed the storage of six alphanumeric characters encoded in a six-bit character encoding.

Can someone give an example for a six-bit character encoding? --Abdull 18:23, 26 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

See sixbit, which I just created. --Macrakis 20:50, 26 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Rename as "36-bit"?

I suggest this article be renamed "36-bit", for consistency with the other articles using Template:N-bit . Letdorf (talk) 14:56, 25 March 2008 (UTC).[reply]

C

The C programming language requires that all memory be accessible as bytes, so C implementations on 36-bit machines use 9-bit bytes.

I don't believe that that's true. The C language requires that a C compiler recognize the datatype "char", but puts few restrictions on its size, other than that "char" can't be larger than "short", "int", or "long". As far as the requirements of the C language, it would be perfectly acceptable for a "char" to always occur on a 36-bit-word boundary and to occupy any or all of that 36-bit word, again provided only that "short" was no smaller. If C compilers on historic 36-bit mainframe computers used 9-bit bytes, that was a choice of the compiler authors in the interest of making the most efficient use of memory, which (by 2011 standards) was shockingly limited and appallingly expensive — it wasn't a requirement. In comparison, the Pascal programming language supports both types of character storage, and allows the choice to be made by the Pascal program author ("array" vs. "packed array") rather than by the Pascal compiler author; C gives that choice to the C compiler author only. 76.100.17.21 (talk) 10:50, 23 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What is it that you believe is not true in the above statement? "The C programming language requires that all memory be accessible as bytes"? Or "The C programming language requires that all memory be accessible as bytes"? The first one is a requirement that limits the byte length to divisors of 36, i.e. 6, 9, 12, 18 and 36. Of these 9 was chosen being the smallest practical length (6 being too small). The restriction imposed by C is that within words there cannot be bits not accessible by the char type, not the matter that you discuss above. I believe that your argumentation misses the point discussed in the article, so I am removing the "dubious" remark. 129.112.109.245 (talk) 23:10, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]