10 bits in a byte?

[SuperCookie78]

Why didn't original computer designers and programmers go with a 10 bits in byte system? I'm sure it would work right?

[thekeemo]

Because powers of 2

[QueenDemetria]

Why didn't original computer designers and programmers go with a 10 bits in byte system? I'm sure it would work right?

What I got from wiki:

 

Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer[1][2] and for this reason it is the smallest addressable unit of memory in many computer architectures. The size of the byte has historically been hardware dependent and no definitive standards existed that mandated the size. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte

[Glenwing]

Why didn't original computer designers and programmers go with a 10 bits in byte system? I'm sure it would work right?

Because computers operate in binary, not decimal. You commonly see bits in groups of 8, so it makes sense to build a shorthand around that. It doesn't make sense to build a shorthand around groups that you don't actually use in the field.

[Pankaic]

There is a base 10 data system. Search for the difference between gibibyte and gigabyte.

[MoonKnightSpidey]

It has to do with binary. 8 binary digits are an Octet and and easier to implement in to code, if i am correct, which I may not be.

[KemoKa]

Impossible because computers work in binary. you can only work with powers of 2. Besides, it would be unnecessary. There's no need if you have just the latin-based, alphanumeric language that we have, and if you need more characters you just add another byte. that extra byte allows for pretty much every Chinese character that exists, plus all the other characters for other languages.

[SuperCookie78]

What I got from wiki:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte

this makes sense 

[Glenwing]

Impossible because computers work in binary. you can only work with powers of 2. Besides, it would be unnecessary. There's no need if you have just the latin-based, alphanumeric language that we have, and if you need more characters you just add another byte. that extra byte allows for pretty much every Chinese character that exists, plus all the other characters for other languages.

It's not impossible, it's just a name, which computers don't care about. It's not like you'd have to force computers to work with groups of 10 in order for us to call a group of 10 a byte. Computers would still work with groups of 8 bits, they just wouldn't be called bytes, they'd be 0.8 bytes. There's no reason this system wouldn't work, it would just be inconvenient. Which really defeats the purpose of coming up with these shorthand names in the first place. So it doesn't make sense, but it's not impossible.

[vanished]

They could have, but 8 made more sense.  There was a time when 6 bits in a byte was a thing