> Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2004 13:46:24 -0800
> From: [log in to unmask]
> Loren P Meissner asked:
>
> > And I think in the early days, the "word" occupied by a default integer
> > was usually the smallest addressable storage unit. (Was IBM 360 the
> > first byte-addressable machine?)
>
> If by "byte addressable" you mean "less than 16 bits" the answer is no.
> The IBM 1401 had 6-bit characters, with "word mark" bits to delineate
> fields. I have the manual for the 1401 Fortran compiler. Pre-360
> successors to the 1401 included the 1460, 1440, 1410 and 7010 (or was it
> 7070?) The 1480 was planned but then not built with that label. Somebody
> told me it became the 360/20. Honeywell had a competitor for the 1400
> series called the 200. The Univac 1005 was also a character-addressable
> machine. The NCR 315 (actually built by CDC) allowed addressing 4-bit
> BCD digits, 6-bit characters or 12-bit integers that they called "slabs".
>
> Of the machines that had good-size integers and floating-point hardware,
> it is possible the 360 was the first to include byte addressing.
Still no.
The KDF9 (1963) was byte addressible
and had hardware integer and floating-point.
Instructions were 8 bits in length or multiples thereof.
It was stack based, and addressless.
> --
> Van Snyder
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