[comp.unix.questions] parity,odd,even,mark,space

izen@amelia.nas.nasa.gov (Steven H. Izen) (12/21/89)

To all who took the time to repond to my question about what mark, space, etc.
meant, thank you.

Essentially evryone who responded told me the same thing.  That is, space means
the parity bit is fixed as 0, mark means it is fixed as one.  Also, when the
8/even protocol is used, first there is a start bit, 8 data bits, the parity
bit, and then the stop bit, for a total of 11 bits in the frame.  No, the
parity bit isn't stored.  That is, the application never sees the parity bit.

Someone, (sorry I don't remember who), commented that 8 even is rarely used,
8/none is much more common.  I can see why since there is an extra bit that
needs to be transmitted.  Of course, that's what they use at the NASA-Lewis 
Research Center-it figures. :-)

Thanks again to all who took the time to answer.


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