Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!decwrl!shelby!agate!linus!alliant!tj
From: tj@Alliant.COM (Tom Jaskiewicz)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Looking for a really odd computer
Message-ID: <4266@alliant.Alliant.COM>
Date: 12 Oct 90 04:03:19 GMT
References: <2721@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>
Reply-To: tj@alliant.Alliant.COM (Tom Jaskiewicz)
Organization: Alliant Computer Systems, Littleton, MA
Lines: 16

From article <2721@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>, by davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr):
> . . .
> many minis were made with 16 or 18 bit words, so did anyone ever build a
> 9-bit byte system?

Yes.  I recall such a system on a Honeywell mainframe that I had the misfortune
to use back in 1974.  I don't recall the model number of the machine (I've been
trying to forget it for years).  It had 36 bit words and packed four 9-bit
characters to a word.

In Fortran, you could read into an integer using A4 format.
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