In article <ht4406$92...@reader1.panix.com>, Grant Edwards <inva...@invalid.invalid> wrote: > >Lest my allusions to Fortran IV be lost upon the less grizzled, only >the first 6 characters were significant in Fortran IV identifiers, and >removing all of the vowels from a longer word was an idiomatic way to >create an identifier with a length <= 6. > >IIRC, the number 6 was originally chosen because that's how many 6-bit >characters you could hold in a single 36-bit CPU register. That way >when writing a compiler/link/assembly you could compare two >identifiers using a single "CMP" instruction. > >I'm not sure why 36-bits was such a popular ALU width, but many >different vendors sold 36-bit machines back in the day.
16 bit mini computers were popular: the pdp11. Now 3 FORTRAN char's fitted in one word (radix 40). At least it helped to shoe horn identifier names into two words. > >-- >Grant Edwards grant.b.edwards Yow! Hand me a pair of > at leather pants and a CASIO > gmail.com keyboard -- I'm living > for today! -- -- Albert van der Horst, UTRECHT,THE NETHERLANDS Economic growth -- being exponential -- ultimately falters. alb...@spe&ar&c.xs4all.nl &=n http://home.hccnet.nl/a.w.m.van.der.horst -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list