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From: radford@calgary.UUCP (Radford Neal)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards,comp.arch
Subject: Re: *Why* do modern machines mostly have 8-bit bytes?
Message-ID: <1037@vaxb.calgary.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 27-Jul-87 18:40:03 EDT
Article-I.D.: vaxb.1037
Posted: Mon Jul 27 18:40:03 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 29-Jul-87 00:52:58 EDT
References: <142700010@tiger.UUCP> <2792@phri.UUCP> <8315@utzoo.UUCP> <3532@ihlpg.ATT.COM>
Organization: U. of Calgary, Calgary, Ab.
Lines: 14
Summary: 33 bit? How about 31 bit?
Xref: mnetor comp.unix.wizards:3447 comp.arch:1712

In article <3532@ihlpg.ATT.COM>, ejbjr@ihlpg.ATT.COM (Branagan) writes:
> Just some trivia on strange word sizes...
> 
> Some time ago (very long ago in fact) I came across a machine called 
> an `ALWAC III'.  It had 33 bit words!??  There was some logic in it
> though - four 8 bit bytes and a sign bit (though the sign bit was in the
> least significant position, and was 1 for positive, 0 for negative).
> Just think how much worse things could be ...

Yup. The LGP-30, of 1950's vintage, had 31 bit memory words. The accumulator
had 32 bits, though. They seem to have thought of their memory as being
32-bit words, but the low-order bit was always zero...

    Radford Neal