Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen From: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: 64 bits--why stop there? Message-ID: <2468@crdos1.crd.ge.COM> Date: 28 Aug 90 17:13:59 GMT References: <6106@vanuata.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> <2437@crdos1.crd.ge.COM> <3259@skye.ed.ac.uk> <1990Aug23.015636.506@portia.Stanford.EDU> Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen) Organization: GE Corp R&D Center, Schenectady NY Lines: 32 In article meissner@osf.org (Michael Meissner) writes: | Obviously you've never had the 'fun' of porting to a machine which | different types of pointers. I supported a C compiler on such a | machine for 7 years (the Data General MV/Eclipse computers), and if I | never have to see such a beast again, it will be too soon. Actually I never ported C, but I have worked on a GE600/6000/DPS language, and it certainly had every type of pointer you could wish. | C programmers are notorious for thinking that all pointers look the | same. I had to put in several options to either flag when one type of | pointer was used in the wrong context, or silently add extra | instructions so that programmers who were too lazy to type things | correctly could get their programs to work. Actually the ANSI compilers I've used are very good about complaining until you use casts or clean up your logic. Far better code is the result. In truth the biggest problem I've seen is people putting addresses into ints. | IMHO, the 64 bit machine should represent all addresses in bits, not | bytes (and yes this will probably break those programs which do int | arithmetic on pointers -- but those are probably in the miniority). | Before people lynch me, let me explain, that I think that the | addresses that are not appropriately aligned should trap. As I recall the iapx432 had bit addresses, didn't it? Lord, I can't remember... time *does* heal all wounds. -- bill davidsen (davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen) VMS is a text-only adventure game. If you win you can use unix.