| Computer architecture bit widths |
|---|
| Bit |
| Application |
| Binary floating-pointprecision |
| Decimal floating-pointprecision |
Incomputer architecture,60-bitintegers,memory addresses, or otherdata units are those that are 60bits wide. Also, 60-bitcentral processing unit (CPU) andarithmetic logic unit (ALU) architectures are those that are based onregisters,address buses, ordata buses of that size.
A 60-bit word is typically used for high-precisionfloating-point calculations; it can also store 106-bit characters.[1]
The only widely-used computers with 60-bitwords were produced byControl Data Corporation (CDC),[2] including theCDC 6000 series,[3] theCDC 7600, and theCDC Cyber 70 and 170 series.[4] Though the addressable unit was the 60-bit word, instructions were either 15 or 30 bits.[3]
Early design documents for theIBM 7030 Stretch tentatively specified its word length as 60 bits; the final design used 64.[5]
Museum examples of 60-bit CDC machines exist. There also exists an emulator for the series which will simulate the CDC 60-bit machines on commodity hardware and operating systems.[4]