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IPv4 address length technical design
- Subject: IPv4 address length technical design
- From: Valdis.Kletnieks at vt.edu (Valdis.Kletnieks at vt.edu)
- Date: Thu, 04 Oct 2012 14:25:47 -0400
- In-reply-to: Your message of "Thu, 04 Oct 2012 09:57:34." <[email protected]>
- References: <[email protected]>
On Thu, 04 Oct 2012 09:57:34, Johnny Eriksson said:
> Valdis.Kletnieks at vt.edu wrote:
>
> > And the -10s and -20s were the major reason RFCs refer to octets
> > rather than bytes, as they had a rather slippery notion of "byte"
> > (anywhere from 6 to 9 bits, often multiple sizes used *in the
> > same program*).
>
> Not quite correct. Anywhere from 1 to 36 bits, and not spanning
> a 36-bit word boundary. Essentialy what is now known as a bit field.
Right - but in actual programming practice, code tended to distinguish
between a "byte" and "N bit wide field of flags or whatever". And bytes
as character storage ran from 6 to 9 bits depending on the charset in use.
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