Can't I get a /dev/one?

[Benjamin J. Weiss]

On Thu, 15 Jul 2004, William M. Quarles wrote:

> Jim Higson wrote:
> > What do you mean by "all ones" - all binary ones (which is filling it with 
> > byte 255) or ones on the byte or word level?
> 
> Binary ones.

A byte of all 1's would be 11111111b, which would be 0xff hex or 255 for 
an unsigned char (if you're using C).

A word would be 1111111111111111b, or 0xffff hex, or 65535 for an unsigned 
short int.

A "binary 1", would be either 00000001b (0x01) or 0000000000000001b 
(0x0001).

Most utilities, when talking about "filling a hard drive with all 1's" (in 
my experience) speak of the first or second option above, depending upon 
who wrote the code, and when.

Ben