You do still hear people speaking of a string of bits, as well as a string of characters. I think the word "array" tends to be preferred for lists of numbers, s

You do still hear people speaking of a string of bits, as well as a string of characters. I think the word "array" tends to be preferred for lists of numbers, since in its original sense in mathematics it was (and is) a synonym for "matrix". For lists of arbitrary objects I guess "array" won out by random chance, more or less.