Bits

One idea, with nothing in it handing off to anything else. Lives on logicalart.us.

Everything here, in one chronology, is on the studio index. The larger pieces are nibbles and bytes.

1838-1865 Bit
Morse
The code is shaped like the language, and imperfectly.
/bits/morse/
1876-1901 Bit
Baudot
Five bits cost the same for every letter, so frequency bought holes instead of time.
/bits/baudot/
1928 Bit
Punch Cards
Eighty columns of holes, and the physics that decided the code.
/bits/punch-cards/
1932-1939 Bit
Interlace
Send the odd lines, then the even ones, and freeze it to see the comb.
/bits/interlace/
1937 Bit
Bitwise
An operator is a wiring diagram, and a shift is not a computation at all.
/bits/bitwise/
1947-1964 Bit
Bit, Nibble, Byte
Why a byte is eight, why a nibble is one hex digit, and how the bases fell out of the hardware.
/bits/bit-nibble-byte/
1963-1967 Bit
ASCII
No lowercase until 1967, and then one bit from its capital.
/bits/ascii/
1983 Bit
Eight Sprites
Eight per scanline and the ninth is dropped, which is why they flickered.
/bits/eight-sprites/