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From: shirriff@sprite.berkeley.edu (Ken Shirriff)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Porting OSes
Keywords: Genetics
Message-ID: <9133@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 21 Nov 90 20:16:50 GMT
References: <41894@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> <272cdde6.7069@petunia.CalPoly.EDU> <1990Nov21.042907.20211@actrix.co.nz> <1990Nov21.185727.22338@Think.COM>
Sender: news@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU
Reply-To: shirriff@sprite.berkeley.edu (Ken Shirriff)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 12

In article <1990Nov21.185727.22338@Think.COM> barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin) writes:
> Nucleotide bases are probably more like digits; in this case, most computers
> are more "reduced" than genes, because they use only two digits while genes
> use four.  The "opcodes" in DNA use three bases, so they're effectively 12
> bits long, which is more than the opcode size of most older microprocessors.

DNA triples (opcodes) are equivalent to 6 bits (2 bits per base pair), not 12.
By your reasoning, the 8080 has 8 binary digits with 2 values each, making it
a 16 bit processor :-)

Ken Shirriff		shirriff@sprite.Berkeley.EDU
"Let no one enter who does not know geometry."