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From: koll@NECAM.tdd.sj.nec.com (Michael Goldman)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: 48-bit computers
Message-ID: <1991Mar21.164242.886@sj.nec.com>
Date: 21 Mar 91 16:42:42 GMT
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Organization: NEC-AM TDD, San Jose, California
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BTW, the Intel 386/486 has a seldom mentioned 14-bit segment register to
handle multiple 32-bit spaces (for multiple large disks for virtual memory?)
so one could think of it as a 46-bit machine.  The reason they chose 14 bits
instead of 16 is that ..(militarily sensitive material deleted).. which clearly
proves to anyone that we'll all have to scrap our base 16 calculators and
switch to base 14 (easily divisible by 7, 2, & 3.5) ;)

("Segments!? Did someone say SEGMENTS!!??  SLOOWWLY I TURNED, STEP BY STEP...")