Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!uunet!glyph!ahh
From: ahh@glyph.UUCP (Andy Heffernan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: AmigaDOS Filing System Block Format
Message-ID: <1197@glyph.UUCP>
Date: 12 Aug 90 04:04:54 GMT
References: <1859@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca>
Reply-To: ahh@glyph.UUCP (Andy Heffernan)
Organization: Cinnamon Toast Crunch Research Labs
Lines: 23

In article <1859@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca> lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) writes:
>In <2761@mindlink.UUCP>, a275@mindlink.UUCP (Travers Naran) writes:
>>I have some questions about this:
>>
>>1. What are the "words" refered to in the AmiDOS Tech manual? Long words or
>>normal 16 bit words?
>
>A word is 16 bits. A longword is 32 bits. I never noticed any discrepancy in
>the Amigados manual, though I suppose there could be.

Just a quick note to say that the meaning of the term "word" is somewhat
architecture-dependent.  The standard M68000 (and thus, Amiga) definition
is "word == 16 bits", except for AmigaDOS ("word == 32 bits") due to some 
interesting BCPL implementation issues.  M88000 guys have a different definition
(32 bits), as do DEC-20 guys (36 bits), as do... etc.

Of course, I'm sure Larry understands all this; he was just the last
reply to this topic in today's news batch, so he gets picked on.

-- 
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  Andy Heffernan					uunet!glyph!ahh
"`The... monkeys...' he croaked, gasping for air.  `Send in... the monkeys...'"