What platforms have something other than 8-bit char?

Question

Every now and then, someone on SO points out that char (aka \'byte\') isn\'t necessarily 8 bits.

It seems that 8-bit char is almost universal. I would h

Answer 1

The C and C++ programming languages, for example, define byte as "addressable unit of data large enough to hold any member of the basic character set of the execution environment" (clause 3.6 of the C standard). Since the C char integral data type must contain at least 8 bits (clause 5.2.4.2.1), a byte in C is at least capable of holding 256 different values. Various implementations of C and C++ define a byte as 8, 9, 16, 32, or 36 bits

Quoted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte#History

Not sure about other languages though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_7030_Stretch#Data_Formats

Defines a byte on that machine to be variable length