16 lines
2.5 KiB
HTML
16 lines
2.5 KiB
HTML
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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" standalone="no"?>
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>chawmp</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="../../jargon.css" type="text/css"/><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.61.0"/><link rel="home" href="../index.html" title="The Jargon File"/><link rel="up" href="../C.html" title="C"/><link rel="previous" href="chase-pointers.html" title="chase pointers"/><link rel="next" href="check.html" title="check"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">chawmp</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="chase-pointers.html">Prev</a><EFBFBD></td><th width="60%" align="center">C</th><td width="20%" align="right"><EFBFBD><a accesskey="n" href="check.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><dt><a id="chawmp"/><dt xmlns="" id="chawmp"><b>chawmp</b>: <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="grammar">n.</span></dt></dt><dd><p> [University of Florida] 16 or 18 bits (half of a machine word).
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This term was used by FORTH hackers during the late 1970s/early 1980s; it
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is said to have been archaic then, and may now be obsolete. It was coined
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in revolt against the promiscuous use of ‘word’ for anything
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between 16 and 32 bits; ‘word’ has an additional special
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meaning for FORTH hacks that made the overloading intolerable. For similar
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reasons, <span class="pronunciation">/gaw<61>bl/</span> (spelled
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‘gawble’ or possibly ‘gawbul’) was in use as a term
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for 32 or 48 bits (presumably a full machine word, but our sources are
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unclear on this). These terms are more easily understood if one thinks of
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them as faithful phonetic spellings of ‘chomp’ and
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‘gobble’ pronounced in a Florida or other Southern
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U.S. dialect. For general discussion of similar terms, see
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<a href="../N/nybble.html"><i class="glossterm">nybble</i></a>.</p></dd><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="chase-pointers.html">Prev</a><EFBFBD></td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="../C.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"><EFBFBD><a accesskey="n" href="check.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">chase pointers<72></td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"><EFBFBD>check</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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