[TUHS] Does anybody know the etymology of the term "word" as in collection of bits?

[Paul Winalski]

The IBM 1620 had an unusual architecture in that it did decimal
arithmetic operating on variable-length strings of BCD-encoded decimal
digits.  It thus didn't really have a word length at all.  It also
didn't have a proper ALU--it did arithmetic by table lookup.  The
internal code name for the machine was CADET, which was said to stand
for "Can't Add, Doesn't Even Try".  Arithmetic on variable-length
decimal strings was a feature carried over to the System/360/370 and
also the DEC VAX.

Have there been other commercially sold computers without a fixed word length?

-Paul W.