Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!yale!cmcl2!lanl!jlg
From: jlg@lanl.gov (Jim Giles)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: How do compilers handle dimensions?
Message-ID: <57389@lanl.gov>
Date: 18 Jul 90 18:51:26 GMT
References: <KHB.90Jul17133126@chiba.Eng.Sun.COM>
Organization: Los Alamos Natl Lab, Los Alamos, N.M.
Lines: 15

From article <KHB.90Jul17133126@chiba.Eng.Sun.COM>, by khb@chiba.Eng.Sun.COM (Keith Bierman - SPD Advanced Languages):
> [...]
> Since some machines (viz. cdc 6600 and its ilk) have 60-bit words,
> real*4 means real (i.e. 60-bit) ... but for all byte oriented machines,
> that I am aware of, real*4 gets you 32-bit quanties.

I used to use the 6600 all the time and I don't remember that it even
_had_ a REAL*4 (or star anything) declarator.  If it _did_, I would have
expected it to mean a 4-byte real like on other machines.  In the case
of the 6600, this would mean a 24-bit real (4 bytes at 6-bits per byte).
Mind you, an INTEGER*8 would have made sense in this scheme - it would
have corresponded to a 48-bit integer which was the most efficient size
of integer on the machine.

J. Giles