Re: Big B, little b
- To: stds-802-3-hssg@ieee.org
- Subject: Re: Big B, little b
- From: "Mark Ritter" <mritter@us.ibm.com>
- Date: Tue, 28 Nov 2000 07:14:04 -0500
- Cc: "Albert X Widmer" <widmer@us.ibm.com>, "'rtaborek@earthlink.net'" <rtaborek@earthlink.net>, "HSSG_reflector (E-mail)" <stds-802-3-hssg@ieee.org>, "Geoffrey O. Thompson (E-mail)" <gthompso@nortelnetworks.com>, "Robert M. Grow (E-mail)" <bob.grow@intel.com>, "David Law (E-mail)" <david_law@3mail.3com.com>, "Brad Booth (E-mail)" <bradley.booth@intel.com>, "Stephen Haddock (E-mail)" <shaddock@extremenetworks.com>, Jonathan Thatcher <Jonathan.Thatcher@worldwidepackets.com>
- Importance: Normal
- Sender: owner-stds-802-3-hssg@ieee.org
Some history might help to resolve this thread.
The '8B/10B' acronym demonstrably does not trace back to IBM. We simply
adopted the code classification scheme mX/nY which had been widely used in
technical literature long before the Fibre Channel code was developed. X
and Y stand for the number of transmission levels (Binary for two, Ternary
for three, etc.), m and n indicated the number of symbols at the respective
levels. So 8B/10B implies that 8 binary symbols are translated into 10
binary symbols. Codes of the class 4B/3T translate 4 binary symbols into
three ternary symbols. This notation is used in major textbooks and IEEE
publications as any search for the terms quickly reveals. In a context
where nothing but binary systems are discussed, one might want to simply
drop the big B and shorten the acronym to 8/10. Both 8/10 and 8B/10B are
deficient insofar as they are not referencing a specific 8B/10B code of
which there are many. How about FC8/10 as abbreviation for Fibre Channel
8B/10B code?
Albert Widmer, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center. EMAIL: widmer @us.ibm.com
Mark B. Ritter