Must a word be binary (and never unary)? I understand that a computer memory sequential word must always include at least two bits so it must be binary and therefore cannot be unary.
Must a word be binary (and never unary)?
That is to ask; can there be a &quot;unary&quot; computer memory sequential word?

This question might relate to my other question - Must a Turing machine tape be binary?
Machine words have fixed length. Denoting the length by $n$ and the base by $b$, each machine word has $b^n$ possible values, and so stores $\log_2 (b^n)$ bits of information.
A base can be binary or decimal and so forth; if $b=1$ then the machine word has a single possible value, and so stores no information. It would be useless.
Unary encoding is only relevant in contexts where the length is not fixed.