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Why 60bit?
editI'd speculate the CDC (supercomputer) designers used a wide 60bit data path to maximise throughput from memory to register though it would likely have led to greater expense. As supercomputers they would also likely have prioritised numerical computing over characters, I believe the machine used 6 bit characters before machines such as the IBM 360 popularised 8 bit byte and 32 bit word size. Unfortunately these are all original comments but information such as this from authoritative sources would be great for the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Djm-leighpark (talk • contribs) 10:40, 28 February 2019 (UTC)
- An interview with a number of people who were at CDC quotes one of them as saying:
Seymour and Jim did discuss a 64 bit word size for the 6600 mainly because the STRETCH machine was 64 bit and Seymour finally decided that he didn't know what those extra 4 bits were good for and he couldn't count them on his hands very well or something..it wasn't octal. And so he wiped out those extra 4 bits. I think that decision changed the history of commuting.
- ([sic] - I don't know who did the transcription, but they apparently didn't realize that they were discussing "computing", not "commuting"). Guy Harris (talk) 17:38, 28 February 2019 (UTC)