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

[Marc Donner <marc.donner@gmail.com>]

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BTW, IBM’s “Computer Museum” has (had?) a (the?) Stretch and Harvest.  The
“museum” is a warehouse full of old stuff.

On Thu, Sep 8, 2022 at 9:35 PM Douglas McIlroy <
douglas.mcilroy@dartmouth.edu> wrote:

>  > I heard that the IBM 709
> > series had 36 bit words because Arthur Samuel,
> > then at IBM, needed 32 bits to identify the playable squares on a
> > checkerboard, plus some bits for color and kinged
>
> To be precise, Samuel's checkers program was written for
> the 701, which originated the architecture that the 709 inherited.
>
> Note that IBM punched cards had 72 data columns plus 8
> columns typically dedicated to sequence numbers. 700-series
> machines supported binary IO encoded two words per row, 12
> rows per card--a perfect fit to established technology. (I do
> not know whether the fit was deliberate or accidental.)
>
> 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. Multidimensional arrays of packed bytes
> could be streamed at blinding speeds. Eight bits, which synced
> well with the 7020's 64-bit words, was standardized in the 360
> series. The term "byte" was not used in connection with
> 700-series machines.
>
> Doug
>
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