XPost: comp.lang.c++   
   From: Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com   
      
   Bill Davy  writes:   
   > On 01/11/2025 17:05, Mike Terry wrote:   
   >> On 01/11/2025 04:31, Kaz Kylheku wrote:   
   >>> On 2025-11-01, Lynn McGuire  wrote:   
   >>>> Why do programmers confuse Halloween with Christmas?   
   >>>>   
   >>>> Because 31 OCT = 25 DEC   
   >>>   
   >>> It's not that programmer confuse them; rather, the above is the key to   
   >>> the mystical link between the two. It's the underpinning for why Tim   
   >>> Burton's _The Nightmare Before Christmas_ makes sense.   
   >>>   
   >>> I went trick-or-treating today with the kids; there was someone in   
   >>> a Santa suit!   
   >>>   
   >> I bet you he had a long beard.  I knew it! - one of those "octal   
   >> beardies", an old-time UNIX programmer for sure!  He probably   
   >> started on a PDP-11.  :)   
   >> Mike.   
   >   
   > Never understood PDP11 using octal.  16 bits / 3?  Old habits die hard.   
      
   A word on a PDP-11 is 16 bits, but it's often logically divided into   
   3-bit chunks.  CPU instructions have 3-bit fields to denote one of the 8   
   registers, and 3-bit fields to denote a mode.   
      
   > Now, the PDP9 (18 bits / 3).  Fortran compiler "G 2 544237" (or   
   > something like that).   
      
   --   
   Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com   
   void Void(void) { Void(); } /* The recursive call of the void */   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)