[TUHS] Does anybody know the etymology of the term "word" as in collection of bits?

[TUHS] Does anybody know the etymology of the term "word" as in collection of bits?

[Jon Steinhart]

One of those questions for which there is no search engine incantation.

Jon

[TUHS] Re: Does anybody know the etymology of the term "word" as in collection of bits?

[Andrew Hume]

i can’t find my copy of “pixel”, but i would guess he might mention that.

> On Sep 8, 2022, at 9:51 AM, Jon Steinhart <jon@fourwinds.com> wrote:
> 
> One of those questions for which there is no search engine incantation.
> 
> Jon

[TUHS] Re: Does anybody know the etymology of the term "word" as in collection of bits?

[Dan Halbert]

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On 9/8/22 12:51, Jon Steinhart wrote:
> One of those questions for which there is no search engine incantation.
>
> Jon

The famous 1946 paper, "Preliminary discussion of the logical design of 
an electronic computing device",  by Arthur Burks,  Herman H. Goldstine, 
John von Neumann, contains this sentence. I have this paper in Computer 
Structures: Readings and Examples, by Bell and Newell, but it's also 
online in many forms

**

    *

    4. The memory organ

    * 4.1. Ideally one would desire an indefinitely large memory
    capacity such that any particular aggregate of 40 binary digits, or
    /word /(cf. 2.3), would be immediately available-i.e. in a time
    which is somewhat or considerably shorter than the operation time of
    a fast electronic multiplier.

I also looked in the Oxford English Dictionary for etymology. It has:

    *d.* /Computing/. A consecutive string of bits (now typically 16,
    32, or 64, but formerly fewer) that can be transferred and stored as
    a unit./machine word/: see /machine word/ n. at machine n. Compounds
    2 <https://www-oed-com.ezproxy.bpl.org/view/Entry/111850#eid38480019>.

    1946 H. H. Goldstine & J. Von Neumann in J. von Neumann /Coll. Wks./
    (1963) V. 28   In ‘writing’ a word into the memory, it is similarly
    not only the time effectively consumed in ‘writing’ which matters,
    but also the time needed to ‘find’ the specified location in the memory.

    [plus newer citations]

Dan H



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[TUHS] Re: Does anybody know the etymology of the term "word" as in collection of bits?

[Greg 'groggy' Lehey]

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On Thursday,  8 September 2022 at 13:28:13 -0400, Dan Halbert wrote:
>
> I also looked in the Oxford English Dictionary for etymology. It has:
>
>     *d.* /Computing/. A consecutive string of bits (now typically 16,
>     32, or 64, but formerly fewer) that can be transferred and stored as
>     a unit./machine word/: see /machine word/ n. at machine n. Compounds
>     2 <https://www-oed-com.ezproxy.bpl.org/view/Entry/111850#eid38480019>.
>
>     1946 H. H. Goldstine & J. Von Neumann in J. von Neumann /Coll. Wks./
>     (1963) V. 28   In ‘writing’ a word into the memory, it is similarly
>     not only the time effectively consumed in ‘writing’ which matters,
>     but also the time needed to ‘find’ the specified location in the memory.

Since we're searching the OED, there are a couple of others.  The
/machine word/ mentioned above has:

  machine word n. Computing: a word of the length appropriate for a
  	          particular fixed word-length computer.

  1954 Computers & Automation Dec. 16/1 Machine word, a unit of
       information of a standard number of characters, which a machine
       regularly handles in each register.

This makes the meaning clearer, I think, though it doesn't seem to be
a change in meaning.

On Thursday,  8 September 2022 at 17:16:35 -0400, Noel Chiappa wrote:
>
> Looking a little further, Turing's ACE Report, from 1946, uses the
> term (section 4, pg. 25; "minor cycle, or word"). My copy, the one
> edited by Carpenter and Doran, has a note #1 by them, "Turing seems
> to be the first user of 'word' with this meaning." I have Brian's
> email, I can ask him how they came to that determination, if you'd
> like.

I don't see that this is the same meaning.  Do you?  "Minor cycle"
suggests timing parameters.  But it would be interesting to know
whether this document pre- or postdates Goldstine and von Neumann.

And since we were also talking about bits, it seems that OED has its
own entry,  bit, n.4:

  A unit of information derived from a choice between two equally
  probable alternatives or ‘events’; such a unit stored electronically
  in a computer.

  1948 C. E. Shannon in Bell Syst. Techn. Jrnl. July 380 The choice of
       a logarithmic base corresponds to the choice of a unit for
       measuring information. If the base 2 is used the resulting
       units may be called binary digits, or more briefly bits, a word
       suggested by J. W. Tukey.

Greg
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[TUHS] Re: Does anybody know the etymology of the term "word" as in collection of bits?

[Paul Winalski]

The IBM 1620 had an unusual architecture in that it did decimal
arithmetic operating on variable-length strings of BCD-encoded decimal
digits.  It thus didn't really have a word length at all.  It also
didn't have a proper ALU--it did arithmetic by table lookup.  The
internal code name for the machine was CADET, which was said to stand
for "Can't Add, Doesn't Even Try".  Arithmetic on variable-length
decimal strings was a feature carried over to the System/360/370 and
also the DEC VAX.

Have there been other commercially sold computers without a fixed word length?

-Paul W.

[TUHS] Re: Does anybody know the etymology of the term "word" as in collection of bits?

[Bakul Shah]

On Sep 9, 2022, at 8:49 AM, Paul Winalski <paul.winalski@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Have there been other commercially sold computers without a fixed word length?

Burroughs B1700? It was a bit addressable machine.

[TUHS] Re: Does anybody know the etymology of the term "word" as in collection of bits?

[Noel Chiappa]

    > It was used, in the modern sense, in "Planning a Computer System",
    > Buchholz,1962.

Also in the IBM "650 Manual of Operation", June, 1955. (Before I was
born! :-)

	Noel

[TUHS] Re: Does anybody know the etymology of the term "word" as in collection of bits?

[Jim Capp]

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See "The Preparation of Programs for an Electronic Digital Computer", by Maurice V. Wilkes, David J. Wheeler, and Stanley Gill, copyright 1951, 

pp. 5 section 1-4: "The store is divided into a number of registers or storage locations; the content of a storage location is a sequence of 0's and 1's, and may represent an order or a number. 


The term word is used for the content of a storage location if it is desired to refer to it without specifying whether it represents a number or an order." 


Jim 







From: "Noel Chiappa" <jnc@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> 
To: tuhs@tuhs.org 
Cc: jnc@mercury.lcs.mit.edu 
Sent: Thursday, September 8, 2022 2:20:51 PM 
Subject: [TUHS] Re: Does anybody know the etymology of the term "word" as in collection of bits? 

> It was used, in the modern sense, in "Planning a Computer System", 
> Buchholz,1962. 

Also in the IBM "650 Manual of Operation", June, 1955. (Before I was 
born! :-) 

Noel 

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[TUHS] Re: Does anybody know the etymology of the term "word" as in collection of bits?

[Noel Chiappa]

    > From: Jim Capp

    > See "The Preparation of Programs for an Electronic Digital Computer",
    > by Maurice V. Wilkes, David J. Wheeler, and Stanley Gill

Blast! I looked in the index in my copy (ex the Caltech CS Dept Library :-),
but didn't find 'word' in the index!

Looking a little further, Turing's ACE Report, from 1946, uses the term
(section 4, pg. 25; "minor cycle, or word"). My copy, the one edited by
Carpenter and Doran, has a note #1 by them, "Turing seems to be the first
user of 'word' with this meaning." I have Brian's email, I can ask him how
they came to that determination, if you'd like.

There aren't many things older than that! I looked quickly through the "First
Draft on the EDVAC", 1945 (re-printed in "From ENIAC to UNIVAC", by Stein),
but did not see word there. It does use the term "minor cycle", though.

Other places worth checking are the IBM/Harvard Mark I, the ENIAC and ...
I guess therer's not much else! Oh, there was a relay machine at Bell, too.
The Atanasoff-Berry computer?


    > From: "John P. Linderman"

    > He claims that if you wanted to do decimal arithmetic on a binary
    > machine, you'd want to have 10 digits of accuracy to capture the 10
    > digit log tables that were then popular.

The EDVAC draft talks about needing 8 decimal digits (Appendix A, pg.190);
apparently von Neumann knew that that's how many digits one needed for
reasonable accuracy in differential equations. That is 27 "binary digits"
(apparently 'bit' hadn't been coined yet).

	Noel

[TUHS] Re: Does anybody know the etymology of the term "word" as in collection of bits?

[Dan Halbert]

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I did send this already, from 1946, did you see it?

The famous 1946 paper, "Preliminary discussion of the logical design of 
an electronic computing device",  by Arthur Burks,  Herman H. Goldstine, 
John von Neumann, contains this sentence. I have this paper in Computer 
Structures: Readings and Examples, by Bell and Newell, but it's also 
online in many forms

4. The memory organ

4.1. Ideally one would desire an indefinitely large memory capacity such 
that any particular aggregate of 40 binary digits, or -word- (cf. 2.3), 
would be immediately available-i.e. in a time which is somewhat or 
considerably shorter than the operation time of a fast electronic 
multiplier.

[word is in italics]

On 9/8/22 17:16, Noel Chiappa wrote:
>      > From: Jim Capp
>
>      > See "The Preparation of Programs for an Electronic Digital Computer",
>      > by Maurice V. Wilkes, David J. Wheeler, and Stanley Gill
>
> Blast! I looked in the index in my copy (ex the Caltech CS Dept Library :-),
> but didn't find 'word' in the index!
>
> Looking a little further, Turing's ACE Report, from 1946, uses the term
> (section 4, pg. 25; "minor cycle, or word"). My copy, the one edited by
> Carpenter and Doran, has a note #1 by them, "Turing seems to be the first
> user of 'word' with this meaning." I have Brian's email, I can ask him how
> they came to that determination, if you'd like.
>
> There aren't many things older than that! I looked quickly through the "First
> Draft on the EDVAC", 1945 (re-printed in "From ENIAC to UNIVAC", by Stein),
> but did not see word there. It does use the term "minor cycle", though.
>
> Other places worth checking are the IBM/Harvard Mark I, the ENIAC and ...
> I guess therer's not much else! Oh, there was a relay machine at Bell, too.
> The Atanasoff-Berry computer?
>
>
>      > From: "John P. Linderman"
>
>      > He claims that if you wanted to do decimal arithmetic on a binary
>      > machine, you'd want to have 10 digits of accuracy to capture the 10
>      > digit log tables that were then popular.
>
> The EDVAC draft talks about needing 8 decimal digits (Appendix A, pg.190);
> apparently von Neumann knew that that's how many digits one needed for
> reasonable accuracy in differential equations. That is 27 "binary digits"
> (apparently 'bit' hadn't been coined yet).
>
> 	Noel

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