From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall) Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2019 08:38:02 +1100 (EST) Subject: [COFF] In memoriam: Gene Amdahl In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, 11 Nov 2019, Clem Cole wrote: > According to my friend Russ Robulen (his coworker, lead on the 360/50, > worked on /91 and later lead for the IBM ASC),  Amdahl wanted the byte > to be 7-bits for S/360, but Fred Brook's overruled him.  Brooks was said > to have thrown Amdahl out his office and told him "not come back unless > it was a power of 2", as "he could not program it sanely otherwise."  >  Amdahl semi-won the 24/32 bit war.   Brooks let he have a 24 bit basic > word, only if it stored it as 32 bits and ensured that all pointers were > stored in the same.  Russ says that Amdahl always thought both choices > were a terrible waste of hardware.   Gordon Bell later said, those two > choices were the most important in S/360's lasting impact. Interesting; I'll try and summarise that for my calendar. In the meantime I'm glad that Brooks' view prevailed, having worked with byte-less 12-bit (PDP-8) and 60-bit (CDC); I don't remember the word length of the Burroughs series. -- Dave