Yeah, but there was a real issue, IIRC, about writing tapes- you had to write
words, and, let's see, that's 5 7-bit ascii chars or 4 9-bit ascii chars that
would get packed.....

On Thu, 27 Jan 2000, Ted Lemon wrote:

> 
> > A Decsystem 20 was a fine machine (we had two at the parent company of Nike
> > where I got my start in this biz), except for the 36 bit wordsize.
> 
> Except for?   The 36-bit wordsize was one of its strengths!   :')   It
> was a great machine for running LISP!
> 
> 			       _MelloN_
>