RS> I'm not following you here...  He is describing a system that
RS> is based on a 12 bit word.

I thought that the size of a word was non-changing:  2 bytes.  How about 
the size of a short?  Is that _always_ half the size of an int?  I was 
under the impression that the only varying description was that of int.

JB> I thought he was describing a need to split up a datastream
JB> coinsisting of concatenated 12 bit BCD values I assumed he was doing
JB> that in 8 bit hardware.

You've almost got it right... the values displayed on the face of the 
meter (with LCD displays) were stored and transmitted in BCD.  The 
interval values (power usage for a particular location for a particular 
period of time [interval]) were stored and transmitted as a stream of 12-
bit values.  The processor (and the OS, I assume) in the meter was 16-
bit.

JB> the second question I thouight referred to splitting a single byte
JB> in half using sscanf.

That's exactly correct.  Is there any way of doing that without using 
shifting and/or masking?

RS> when received at the 8 bit byte machine the stream would
RS> flatten out like this...

RS> 11010000 00011001 01000001 11001100 00011101 00000001

JB> Not if a synchrionous link was used.

Why is that?  I thought that from the end-user-machine's point of view 
there is no difference between sync and async.  In fact, the only 
appreciable difference is in frame formation.

þ CMPQwk 1.42 999

--- Maximus/2 3.01