[TUHS] Does anybody know the etymology of the term "word" as in collection of bits?
Dan Halbert
halbert at halwitz.org
Fri Sep 9 03:28:13 AEST 2022
On 9/8/22 12:51, Jon Steinhart wrote:
> One of those questions for which there is no search engine incantation.
>
> Jon
The famous 1946 paper, "Preliminary discussion of the logical design of
an electronic computing device", by Arthur Burks, Herman H. Goldstine,
John von Neumann, contains this sentence. I have this paper in Computer
Structures: Readings and Examples, by Bell and Newell, but it's also
online in many forms
**
*
4. The memory organ
* 4.1. Ideally one would desire an indefinitely large memory
capacity such that any particular aggregate of 40 binary digits, or
/word /(cf. 2.3), would be immediately available-i.e. in a time
which is somewhat or considerably shorter than the operation time of
a fast electronic multiplier.
I also looked in the Oxford English Dictionary for etymology. It has:
*d.* /Computing/. A consecutive string of bits (now typically 16,
32, or 64, but formerly fewer) that can be transferred and stored as
a unit./machine word/: see /machine word/ n. at machine n. Compounds
2 <https://www-oed-com.ezproxy.bpl.org/view/Entry/111850#eid38480019>.
1946 H. H. Goldstine & J. Von Neumann in J. von Neumann /Coll. Wks./
(1963) V. 28 In ‘writing’ a word into the memory, it is similarly
not only the time effectively consumed in ‘writing’ which matters,
but also the time needed to ‘find’ the specified location in the memory.
[plus newer citations]
Dan H
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