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 > -- ===== nygeek.net mindthegapdialogs.com/home