Bit Addressable Architectures

[der Mouse]

In article <0WG23wy00W07M9LkhH at andrew.cmu.edu>, jk3k+ at andrew.cmu.edu (Joe Keane) writes:
> In article <1988Mar14.193330.488 at utzoo.uucp>, henry at utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
>> Since octal is the way God meant programmers to count (the thumbs
>> are parity bits) :-), this is clearly a Good Thing.
> Right reason, wrong answer.  Your hands can of course hold 10 bits.
> Since you say the thumbs are parity bits, that means they hold a
> byte.  That means each hand stores - get this - a hex digit.  Down
> with octal!

That was my reaction too, until I thought about it.  When we count
normally on our fingers, we count to ten, not 1024 (or at least I do; I
don't know how many fingers you have :-).  So Henry would have us count
to eight, and the parity bit bit is just confusing in that it suggests
that each finger represents one bit.

					der Mouse

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