Survey posted 2005-07-07 01:45 by Jon.

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Um, not to ruin the fun or anything, but this really isn't much of a survey.

I second that.

Fits Websters definition of a survey...

Very true.

Sometimes the random ones get the best discussions...

Moo, random survey
fascinating discussion
now in haiku form

120d

Exactly!

when it gets to 256 it should be wrapped to 0 to confuse BASIC programmers

Or 65536, but I guess that would take too long.

I think you mean 255. (Unless you meant to wrap to 1, but that would make no sense.)

255 is the largest number that you can represent whith a 1 byte number if you take only the lowest 8 bits 256=0

It would wrap after 255, which is at 256. But why not wrap at 729? :)

my brain!
*BOOM*

umm... why WOULD you wrap at 729?

If you had a base 3 computer that used 6 trits/tryte (since 5 would be too small to encode all possible values of a normal byte, & 243 is already passed, anyway), it would wrap at 729 for an unsigned tryte-size variable (or at 365 for a signed tryte (& in base 3 the max positive & negative numbers are equal in magnitude)).

Ah, but since we don't have base-3 computers... :-)

or we could have it wrap to 0 after 511 (777o)

And why not?!?!?!?! Why should we be forced to live with the limitations of common electricity? We need to find the universe's kernel and do a little ... fussing. While we're at it, fix the planet's problems.

If you've read Diane Duane's "A Wizard's Dillemma", you know what I'm talking about. If not, this is a geek site. You all know what a kernel is.

The INTERCAL language calls them trits. I've never seen "tryte" before. (Epiphany: you're talking about bytes using trits. OK.)

A nice table, including the biochemical prefixes for each number:
1 - its/ytes; meth-
2 - bits/bytes; eth-
3 - trits/trytes; prop-
4 - quits/qytes; but-
5 - pents/pytes; pent-
6 - hexts/hytes; hex-
7 - hets/sytes; hept-
8 - octs (pronounced "ocks")/oytes; oct-
9 - nits/nytes; non-
10 - digits/dytes; dec-

I'm too lazy to go above 10. :P

Would you please appologize to my brain? You just made it hurt.

But if it wrapped *at* 255 then it would only get up to 254... So like he said, it should wrap at 256.