what's a word

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Article #12790

#12790

From: Henry Spencer
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 1986 18:11

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> A word is the 'natural' unit of operations on a machine.
> (Which means that 32 bits on a vax should really be called a word, not
> a longword.)

The only reason it's called a longword is because of all the semi-subliminal 
it's-really-just-a-big-pdp11-so-don't-worry-about-incompatibility marketing
horseshit that surrounded the vax in its early days.  Remember when a 780's
official designation was a "VAX-11/780"?

(Well, to be honest, there may be another reason:  it may be a historical
survival from the early vax development days, at which time I suspect the
vax was going to be much more of a stretched 11 than a new machine.  Note
that "VAX" stands for Virtual Address Extended.  Extended what?  Extended
pdp11.)
-- 
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry

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Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: what's a word
Message-ID: <7426@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 18-Dec-86 13:11:40 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.7426
Posted: Thu Dec 18 13:11:40 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 18-Dec-86 13:11:40 EST
References: <112@bnr-vpa.UUCP> <9200002@rmi.UUCP>, <193@drilex.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
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