25 Dec
2004
25 Dec
'04
11:30 a.m.
>>>> "Fred" == Fred Cisin
<cisin(a)xenosoft.com> writes:
> How many computers (automatic, electronic,
digital,
> stored-program, etc) used an odd number of bits?
Fred> I assume that you don't want to include PARITY bits, ECC, or
Fred> other "appendages" to the actual data bits ?
Hm. That brings up two marginal examples...
Presumably parity and ECC don't count.
So how about the IBM 1620? A decimal machine, using 6 bits per digit
of which one is the parity, leaving 5 "data" bits (4 magnitude plus
sign).
Second, the Burroughs 6000 series (and 5500 presumably also) --
normally described as 48 bit machines, but they have 3 "tag" bits on
each word that indicate what type of information is in that word. For
example tag of 0 means this is data, tag of 7 means this is an
instruction word. The security of those systems depended on those
tags.
paul