Subject: Re: MIT ChaosNet code port to Linux From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net> Date: Fri, 21 Jun 2002 16:58:28 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3233667508189525@naggum.net> * Barry Margolin | I don't know much about what DEC did, as much of my PDP-10 experience was | on ITS, which did not come from DEC. There was quite a bit of 6-bit in ITS. Oh, sorry, I missed the ITS-exclusive context. I have only worked with TOPS-10 and TOPS-20. | You're right, it's wrong to call it ASCII, it's just a 6-bit character set | (wasn't BAUDOT also a 6-bit character set)? Baudot code was a telegraph alphabet using 5 bits with two shift states, allowing 90 different characters. (Only one shift state was allowed at a time, or 60 more characters could easily have been added, as their order would also have mattered.) I believe Baudot was International Telegraph Alphabet Number 1, but cannot confirm this now. It dates back to 1880, and was replaced by the start-stop asynchronous International Telegraph Alphabet Number 2, about which I find no authoritative information -- my library of past editions of the CCITT colored books are not that complete. (And after having tried to explain the relationship between Unicode and ISO 6429 to a few people and having been voted down by Google searches because the myths outnumber the actual specification, I have once again lost all faith in asking the Internet in general for accurate and correct information.) -- Guide to non-spammers: If you want to send me a business proposal, please be specific and do not put "business proposal" in the Subject header. If it is urgent, do not use the word "urgent". If you need an immediate answer, give me a reason, do not shout "for your immediate attention". Thank you.