🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1990Oct3.2...@hq.demos.su>, a...@hq.demos.su (Vadim G. Antonov) writes:
> In article <1990Oct03.172748.18683@virtech.uucp> jje@virtech.uucp (Jeremy J. Epstein) writes:
> >What were the advantages/disadvantages of 7 track as opposed to
> >9 track?
> 
> Hmmm... Obviously you can not write whole bytes to 7 track tape (yes,
> actually you can - after a clever hack :-). 9 track tape provides some
> useful features like parity checking and tape markers...


As I always understood it, the predecessor to 7 bit ASCII was a 6 bit
character code. I think it had the middle 64 characters out of the 7 bit set.
The 7 bit ASCII code wasn't formalized until around 1965/66. 

Hence there were many machines with word sizes that were a multiple of 6 bits 
in the '60s, 12, 18, 36, 60. These word sizes were useful for storing symbol 
names e.g. 6 character FORTRAN symbols in one 36 bit word.

I would guess that 7track tape was also designed for one 6 bit character per
frame + parity.

Does this sound reasonable?
-- 
Anthony Shipman                               ACSnet: a...@bohra.cpg.oz.au
Computer Power Group
9th Flr, 616 St. Kilda Rd.,
St. Kilda, Melbourne, Australia
D