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From: dhoyt@vx.acs.umn.edu
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Looking for a really odd computer
Message-ID: <2383@ux.acs.umn.edu>
Date: 10 Oct 90 14:43:56 GMT
Sender: news@ux.acs.umn.edu
Organization: University of Minnesota, Academic Computing Services
Lines: 9

>In article <14900017@hpdmd48.boi.hp.com> sritacco@hpdmd48.boi.hp.com (Steve Ritacco) writes:
  Didn't the DEC Systems 10 & 20 allow the program to change the size of
characters?  Five bits gave you radix 50 (used by the file system). Nine was
great as it gave and even number of characters per word with no extra bits as
well as giving you meta characters.  Eight and seven were good for Lisp
programming as it gave you extra tag bits in a word.  I know we did this all in
software, but I can't remember if it was an 'offical' system option or not.

david