--- In Pat Farrell <> wrote:
>
> wrote:
> > Octal is ancient, and the only time I can think of that I've ever
used
> > it is with the chmod command.
>
> I resemble that remark. use of octal was common on 36 bit computers
(six
> octal chars fit nicely). The PDP-10 that Kernigan and Ritchie wished
for
> when they invented Unix was 36 bits, so octal was natural.
>
> Back when I was young, I used those machines so much that I knew all
the
> character codes in octal.
>
> Those machines were usually 30 feet long and cost a million bucks.
> They were slower than a modern 7250 that costs about $100 bucks.
>
> --
> Pat Farrell
> http://www.pfarrell.com/
>
Pat,
Now you've got me going. I don't feel ancient either.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Pdp-11-40.jpg... even the
16-bit machine, PDP-11/40, had the groupings of the colored toggle
switches in groups of three. Odd how there are 18 switches for a
16-bit machine. I either don't remember the reason or never thought to
ask why when I toggled the boot loader on that very same model - my
first computer... well my PUBLIC school's (my parents paid their taxes
so there's some ownership to it), back in 1978. The picture is very
much the configuration we had - two DECTape drives even.
Just thinking of powers of two, octal was always a bit strange.
Anyway, like you said it would be natural on a 36 bit machine.
----
Andy
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