> I never heard about 12-bit CPUs though. The original article points to the DEC PDP-8. That 12-bit architecture, which built on the PDP-5, also 12-bit, wound

> I never heard about 12-bit CPUs though. The original article points to the DEC PDP-8. That 12-bit architecture, which built on the PDP-5, also 12-bit, wound up in microprocessor form in the Intersil 6100, and DEC actually tried to build a desktop microcomputer based on that chip - the DECmate (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DECmate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DECmate). The 16-bit PDP-11 was literally the result of typical DEC indecision, infighting and hedging in the face of increasing importance of ASCII processing (and ultimately a response to a bunch of their engineers who had seen that writing on the wall leaving and founding Data General). Like so many things in computer history, if DEC had had its shit together, things would have worked out very differently.