The VAX is running

[Richard]

In article <2877e57dba24bc750739ccec428ded28 at lunar-tokyo.net>,
    Daniel Seagraves <dseagrav at lunar-tokyo.net>  writes:
> > In article 
> > <f4eb766f0904031640g7c90507eo92411f16365021e1 at mail.gmail.com>,
> >     Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at gmail.com>  writes:
> >
> >> Back in the day, we used to move copies around on magtape, bypassing
> >> all sorts of stream-of-bytes issues.  Today, of course, most things
> >> expect streams of bytes, so that's how most things are presented.
>
> On Apr 4, 2009, at 12:53 PM, Richard wrote:
> 
> > How does magtape avoid the stream-of-bytes issue?
>
> Magtape has blocks.

What exactly is a block?

Is it defined as a sequence of bits or as a sequence of bytes?

If its just a sequence of bytes that define a block, I'm not sure I
understand how blocks avoid the stream-of-bytes issue.
-- 
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
      <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html>

        Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>