From: Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com>
To: Douglas McIlroy <douglas.mcilroy@dartmouth.edu>
Cc: TUHS main list <tuhs@tuhs.org>
Subject: [TUHS] Re: Does anybody know the etymology of the term "word" as in collection of bits?
Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2022 19:12:27 -0700 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20220909021227.GZ11929@mcvoy.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAKH6PiWYQUXKdARUy_cHWqpiJQzEgSr2t4UGc7fmgF8j9ygpLg@mail.gmail.com>
On Thu, Sep 08, 2022 at 09:33:42PM -0400, Douglas McIlroy wrote:
> As to where the byte came from, it was christened for the IBM
> Stretch, aka 7020. The machine was bit-addressed and the width
> of a byte was variable.
Huh, I did a lot of the Unix port to the ETA-10, that was the only
machine that I encountered that had bit pointers. I never understood
why that was a thing, Doug, do you know the rationale for bit pointers?
The ETA-10 is not well known, I was part of the Lachman group:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETA10
My first job after school, I got to watch Neil toggle in the bootstrap
stuff at the console. He wasn't Seymour but he was very very good.
One of the more substantial people I've ever met, I would guess he
has passed but if he hasn't, he would like this group of people.
Whatever, Doug or anyone, why do bit pointers make sense? Why?
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2022-09-09 2:12 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 26+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2022-09-09 1:33 Douglas McIlroy
2022-09-09 2:12 ` Larry McVoy [this message]
2022-09-13 14:23 ` John Foust via TUHS
2022-09-09 2:45 ` George Michaelson
2022-09-16 5:55 ` Marc Donner
-- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2022-09-11 13:30 Douglas McIlroy
2022-09-11 15:08 ` John Cowan
2022-09-11 15:30 ` Bakul Shah
2022-09-11 15:45 ` Paul Winalski
2022-09-11 16:20 ` Steve Nickolas
2022-09-09 19:39 Nelson H. F. Beebe
2022-09-09 20:27 ` Bakul Shah
2022-09-09 21:12 ` Henry Bent
2022-09-09 21:44 ` Dave Horsfall
2022-09-09 18:46 Norman Wilson
2022-09-10 1:35 ` Paul Winalski
2022-09-09 17:26 Douglas McIlroy
2022-09-08 21:16 Noel Chiappa
2022-09-08 21:24 ` Dan Halbert
2022-09-08 18:20 Noel Chiappa
2022-09-08 19:28 ` Jim Capp
2022-09-08 16:51 [TUHS] " Jon Steinhart
2022-09-08 16:56 ` [TUHS] " Andrew Hume
2022-09-08 17:28 ` Dan Halbert
2022-09-09 0:00 ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2022-09-09 15:49 ` Paul Winalski
2022-09-09 18:44 ` Bakul Shah
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