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From: johnw@astroatc.UUCP (John F. Wardale)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Size of SysV "block" (really: what's the word?)
Message-ID: <362@astroatc.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 20-Jul-87 21:30:05 EDT
Article-I.D.: astroatc.362
Posted: Mon Jul 20 21:30:05 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 22-Jul-87 06:04:46 EDT
References: <2792@phri.UUCP> <6705@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP> <524@ollie.UUCP> <2799@phri.UUCP>
Reply-To: johnw@astroatc.UUCP (John F. Wardale)
Organization: Astronautics Technology Cntr, Madison, WI
Lines: 39
Summary: The trouble with trybles (and words)

hansen@mips.UUCP (Craig Hansen) writes:

> A word is whatever you say it is, whether 12, 16, 18, 32, 36, or 64 bits.

> Has anyone seen a good name used for three 8-bit bytes? I've been using
> "tri-byte", but could see it being shortened to "trite" or "tryte."

Just call it a word!

roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) asks:
> machine with a 24 bit word (have there been any?) 

YES!

-----------

Harris Corp. made (makes?) 24bit computers.  They were great
bang/$ for mini's (and semi-super-minis) of a few years ago.

24 bits ints (+/-8,388,608) were fine, and the floats were
48 bits which was usually 7 sig-figs, and faster/cheaper than
64 bit floats.  Word (24 bit) addressed.  Accessing byte was
horrid!!   Converting FORTRASH (sp?) was hard when the original
coded (semi-validly) assumed sizeof(real) == sizeof(integer)
(please excuse the mixed notation)

#include 


			John W

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Name:	John F. Wardale
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