Character width; was: these RTL or what?

[Tony Duell]

> 
> > 6 bits was miserably crowded when numbers and punctuation were added.
> 
> Six bits also is VERY inefficient for numeric data - all that stuff

Curiously, the HP9100 _calculator_ used 6 bit words. This made sesne for 
user programs (and keycodes), but numbers were stored with one BCD digit, 
a sign bit and a blanking bit in each word (I think). The main processor 
register was 6 bits wide too.

The HP9810 that replaced it used 6 bit (logical width) memory, but I 
think only for the user programs (which again were lists of 6-bit 
keycodes). I think nunmbers were stoed in 16-bit-wide memory. Actually, 
since this machine had phyical memeory that was half the width of the 
logical memory (and circuitry to automaitcally do 2 memory cycles), this 
must be one of the few machines to have 3-bit-wide memory boards.

-tony