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"Special register groups" invaded computer dictionaries for decades (2019)


Half a century ago, the puzzling phrase "special register groups" started showing up in definitions of "CPU", and it is still there. In this...

Half a century ago, the puzzling phrase "special register groups" started showing up in definitions of "CPU", and it is still there. This definition persisted into the microcomputer age, even though storage was now clearly not part of the CPU and "special register groups" were decades in the past. For some reason, a 1960 definition of "central processing unit" included "special register groups", an obscure feature from the Honeywell 800 mainframe.

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