I should have checked my 7030 manual before asserting that the 8-bit byte came from there. The term did, but it meant an addressable unit of 1 to 8 bits depending on the instruction being executed. [The machine was addressable to the bit. It also had all 16 bitwise logical operators, and maintained counts of the 1 bits and leading 0 bits in a register. And it was BIG. I saw one with 17 memory boxes (each essentially identical with the total memory of a 7090) stretched across the immaculate hardwood floor of IBM's Poughkeepsie plant.] Doug