Oh sure, and next you'll say a byte is 10 bits ....

deathanatos 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

The word "octet" is absolutely the kibibyte of "bits in a byte".

	▲	layer8 2 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		It’s the French word for “byte”. In France your computer has Ko/Mo/Go.
	▲	kstrauser 2 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I can go along with that, mostly. When you say "octet", some old-timer with an IBM 650 can't go whining that kids these days can't even read his 7-bit emails.

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layer8 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

From https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine-1977-02/page/n145/...:

“A byte was described as consisting of any number of parallel bits from one to six. Thus a byte was assumed to have a length appropriate for the occasion. Its first use was in the context of the input-output equipment of the 1950s, which handled six bits at a time.”

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senfiaj 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

"byte" doesn't even remotely resemble any decimal prefix, so it's okay. The problem is that prefixes "kilo", "mega", etc. are supposed to be decimal prefixes, but are used as binary. And what's worse, they aren't used consistently, sometimes they really mean decimal magnitudes, sometimes they don't.