Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!henry From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: what's a word Message-ID: <7426@utzoo.UUCP> Date: Thu, 18-Dec-86 13:11:40 EST Article-I.D.: utzoo.7426 Posted: Thu Dec 18 13:11:40 1986 Date-Received: Thu, 18-Dec-86 13:11:40 EST References: <112@bnr-vpa.UUCP> <9200002@rmi.UUCP>, <193@drilex.UUCP> Organization: U of Toronto Zoology Lines: 17 > A word is the 'natural' unit of operations on a machine. > (Which means that 32 bits on a vax should really be called a word, not > a longword.) The only reason it's called a longword is because of all the semi-subliminal it's-really-just-a-big-pdp11-so-don't-worry-about-incompatibility marketing horseshit that surrounded the vax in its early days. Remember when a 780's official designation was a "VAX-11/780"? (Well, to be honest, there may be another reason: it may be a historical survival from the early vax development days, at which time I suspect the vax was going to be much more of a stretched 11 than a new machine. Note that "VAX" stands for Virtual Address Extended. Extended what? Extended pdp11.) -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry