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

[Paul Winalski]

On 9/11/22, Bakul Shah <bakul at iitbombay.org> wrote:
>
> C's INT_MAX, LONG_MAX etc are kind of an environment enquiry...

What size to use in  C for int and long (pointers had to be 64-bit; no
issue there) was a big headache for DEC in the migration of Unix
(Ultrix) from VAX to Alpha.   The first C compiler implementation used
ILP64 (64 bits for int, long, and pointer) and ran afoul of a lot of
code that assumed an int was 32 bits.  ILP64 vs. LP64 because as
divisive an issue as the big-endian vs. little-endian debate.

-Paul W.