Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!ico!rcd
From: rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: weird word lengths
Summary: not just odd, but prime!
Message-ID: <1990Oct9.224712.4101@ico.isc.com>
Date: 9 Oct 90 22:47:12 GMT
References: <2721@crdos1.crd.ge.COM> <12857@encore.Encore.COM> <27527@bellcore.bellcore.com>
Organization: Interactive Systems Corporation, Boulder, CO
Lines: 16

mo@messy.bellcore.com (Michael O'Dell) writes:
> Best place to look is the old bit-serial wonders like the venerable
> Bendix G15 (looks remarkably like a Dr. Pepper vending machine of
> that era).  If memory serves me, it had 27 bit registers or some such.

No, it was 29.  That should qualify it for being weirder, since 29 is
prime, but it actually made more sense that way:  29 is 4 7-bit characters
(console was a Selectric) without running into the sign bit...so compares
worked better.

Just to compound the weirdness (and get further from architecture:-), the
G-15 world referred to radix-16 as "sexadecimal" and used uvwxyz instead of
abcdef for the extra six digits.
-- 
Dick Dunn     rcd@ico.isc.com -or- ico!rcd       Boulder, CO   (303)449-2870
   ...Worst-case analysis must never begin with "No one would ever want..."