On Sat, Feb 15, 2025, 7:59 PM Chuck Guzis via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:
> On 2/15/25 15:50, Van Snyder via cctalk wrote: > > On Sat, 2025-02-15 at 23:19 +0000, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > >> Univac used Fieldata well into the 80s, ISTR. > > > > Well beyond then. The Clearpath 2200 went out the door in the early > > 2000's, when Angus McRonald retired. He was the last one left who was > > using old Voyager codes that were trapped in the Univac because nobody > > wanted to pay to revise them for newer computers. Univac also had a > > quarter-word mode for ASCII, even as far back as 1108. The newer > > FORTRAN V compiler was called the ASCII compiler because CHARACTER type > > was, by default, quarter-word instead of sixth-word. > > I remember the 1108--you could have 6, 9 or 12 bit "bytes". > The PDP-10 used 7 bit ASCII--5 characters/word. > > But not 8. > Well... the pdp-10 could use any number of bits per character... the underlying instructions made packing and unpacking easy. Warner > --Chuck > > >
