From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Aug 19 10:22:18 2009 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5618D106568E for ; Wed, 19 Aug 2009 10:22:18 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from heiner_ej@yahoo.de) Received: from n8.bullet.re3.yahoo.com (n8.bullet.re3.yahoo.com [68.142.237.93]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 1058A8FC15 for ; Wed, 19 Aug 2009 10:22:17 +0000 (UTC) Received: from [68.142.237.88] by n8.bullet.re3.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 19 Aug 2009 10:22:17 -0000 Received: from [69.147.75.181] by t4.bullet.re3.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 19 Aug 2009 10:22:17 -0000 Received: from [127.0.0.1] by omp102.mail.re1.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 19 Aug 2009 10:22:17 -0000 X-Yahoo-Newman-Id: 437600.819.bm@omp102.mail.re1.yahoo.com Received: (qmail 26060 invoked from network); 19 Aug 2009 10:22:17 -0000 DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=s1024; d=yahoo.de; h=Received:X-Yahoo-SMTP:X-YMail-OSG:X-Yahoo-Newman-Property:Subject:From:To:In-Reply-To:References:Content-Type:Date:Message-Id:Mime-Version:X-Mailer:Content-Transfer-Encoding; b=2SHezIYR8nqEZ++eYnTwsWaQWvHFtUdrTD1F3uR11MU7UNQNvRypDdlreDNDd/lCR2TIvB93ff+/QwlJQSxfXZ2yrWrip6IMd2HHk0I50r4n19R7f4RnF27q5x4jmJBH5zqMW9YWT3d/dYzWz6Vt6+tVXtiqar1LibMLW+Yj1FE= ; Received: from unknown (HELO ?192.168.2.109?) (heiner_ej@84.144.43.154 with plain) by smtp109.plus.mail.re1.yahoo.com with SMTP; 19 Aug 2009 10:22:16 -0000 X-Yahoo-SMTP: 4oilbwSswBDbRLHb6R1gRRq37n8E1w-- X-YMail-OSG: J875TS8VM1k42lhhz39yX.iPjnxoJ6ltRLSKoclIe4cUhNTcMsa7lzUr0fOLrgYbBUWSK9PZ3X.StNLmnjBxKXvo5mMFYmUGI.fqWsLtnB.iK1Cl2Bmz_iAR.mLRfWDId83puKht7FIrZq4EAIRHQioIZosrOT_lqJzqpy8R7vtUkFDY9K1eBOPef2YUWE.e__WRG.KyrxL_Fm72eyJ0uDIvuY.ScxYI_iFCMuf8XaVYNkJsdp1kffOyv3fmKgs5gaflGuR3PN39Rs2.nawVGxUyWa0snlE7LjIIZPSVno9BYg4qg2CDXEw.OWiKuxpqulFDxQ-- X-Yahoo-Newman-Property: ymail-3 From: Heiner =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Strau=DF?= To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: <20090819075946.1130A106580F@hub.freebsd.org> References: <20090819075946.1130A106580F@hub.freebsd.org> Content-Type: text/plain Date: Wed, 19 Aug 2009 12:22:11 +0200 Message-Id: <1250677331.1178.23.camel@think.ip> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.26.3 FreeBSD GNOME Team Port Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: please help to uninstall FreeBSD!!! X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 19 Aug 2009 10:22:18 -0000 Am Mittwoch, den 19.08.2009, 07:59 +0000 schrieb freebsd-questions-request@freebsd.org: > On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 01:45:27PM -0400, Karl Vogel wrote: > > > >> On Mon, 17 Aug 2009 17:23:29 -0700, > > >> Walt Pawley said: > > > > W> As speculation on my part, perhaps the six character limitation > is less > > W> a software issue than an early architecture issue - DEC's > PDP-6/10 > > W> design used 36-bit words and packed six characters (clearly from > a > > W> limited subset of the then current ASCII) per word, making simple > > W> searches very effective through symbol tables with a simple word > level > > W> compare loop. > > > > I'll second that. My first job for Uncle Sugar was on a DEC > 10/55 > > for the Air Force, and 36-bit words were a fact of life. There > were > > lots of programs around for conversion to/from 32-bit words, just > so > > we could talk to everybody else on Earth. > > CDC (Control Data) mainframe machines used 6 bit characters. > I believe the 3600 series had 36 bit words. > The 6000 series (6400, 6500, etc, plus 170/750) used 60 bit words > but still used 6 bit characters. So, everything was all upper case. > It had 12 bit 'peripheral processors' which tended the 60 bit main > processor[s] so later started to use 12 bit characters or sometimes 8 > in 12 to allow for upper/lower case. That was a Seymour Cray thing. > He designed their early mainframes before he bolted to make his > own companies (so he wouldn't have to conform to corporate control). And I always thought it was 14 bit with 7 bit characters, perhaps this is why my outputs looked strange :) This was the last model I've used: http://www.cray-cyber.org/systems/cy960.php > Later CDC came out with their 180 series that used 64 bit words > and 8 bit bytes. It was kind of a nice system but it was too late for > them. The world was turning to clusters of cheap CPU chips running > UNIX > instead of massive mainframes running proprietary OSen and CDC didn't > jump on that bandwagon soon or strongly or cheaply enough. > > Anyway, in those earliest of days, 6 bits was the economical character > set. But it was an obstacle to upper/lower case characters without > using some shift code. IBM and DEC started doing 8 bit bytes - I > don't > know just when - and that allowed eash use of upper/lower characters > and > so quickly determined the standard character size for a long time. Didn't need lower case at this time. REAL PROGRAMMERS USED FORTRAN http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/real.programmers.html The problem was, the programmers packed the string into integer arrays. 2 characters in 1 integer saved a lot of space, but the VAX didn't like this style. > Now > that 8 bit byte is a thorn in the side of those who want to create > and > universalize a character set that is international. > > ////jerry > Wasn't it just 3 or 4 releases ago FreeBSD went 8 bit clean ?