"Oddball"

[Christian Corti]

On Fri, 29 Jun 2007, Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
> Brent Hilpert wrote:
>> Some other oddball values from that era:
>>   - BINAC: 31 bits
>
> I don't know if you can call 31-bit "oddball".  IBM literally made thousands 
> upon thousands.

And don't forget the LGP-30 (450 built in total, 45 built in Germany) and 
compatibles (LGP-21, ...). Its word size is officially 32 bits, with only 
31 bits usable (only the accumulator can hold all 32 bits, once stored on 
the drum the LSB is forced to zero). So I call it a 31-1/2 bit machine. 
And its design is marvelous, a CPU with all four basic arithmetic 
functions (fixed point) that contains only 15 flip-flops.

Christian