[geeks] The topic for the day..

[Lionel Peterson]

On May 28, 2008, at 11:23 AM, Bill Bradford <mrbill at mrbill.net> wrote:

> Why is computer memory nowdays (at least in the "personal computer"  
> field)
> measured in bytes and not words (as I've seen used in the "big iron"
> field)?

The PC market was defined by techs in the late '70s, and all PCs were  
8-bit.

Later on, the marketers were stuck with bytes, as it matched HD  
capacity and kept things simple. If marketers had their way, I suspect  
we'd measure RAM in bits (as in my new 8 Tbit HD ;^)...

>
> For example, my OpenGenera screenshot shows its available memory in  
> terms
> of megawords:
>
> http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3163/2502891680_22d67e80b3_b.jpg
>
> Discuss.

Lisp machines don't count... Too odd.

Didn't DEC measure words not bytes?

Lionel