>> On Mon, 17 Aug 2009 17:23:29 -0700, 
>> Walt Pawley <w...@wump.org> said:

W> As speculation on my part, perhaps the six character limitation is less
W> a software issue than an early architecture issue - DEC's PDP-6/10
W> design used 36-bit words and packed six characters (clearly from a
W> limited subset of the then current ASCII) per word, making simple
W> searches very effective through symbol tables with a simple word level
W> compare loop.

   I'll second that.  My first job for Uncle Sugar was on a DEC 10/55
   for the Air Force, and 36-bit words were a fact of life.  There were
   lots of programs around for conversion to/from 32-bit words, just so
   we could talk to everybody else on Earth.

-- 
Karl Vogel                      I don't speak for the USAF or my company

Men are liars.  We'll lie about lying if we have to.  I'm an
algebra liar.  I figure two good lies make a positive.      --Tim Allen
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