Newsgroups: comp.arch Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!uupsi!ficc!peter From: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) Subject: Re: Segmented Architectures ( formerly Re: 48-bit computers) Message-ID: Organization: Xenix Support, FICC References: <1991Mar27.172325.10800@sj.nec.com> <7920@uceng.UC.EDU> <3310@crdos1.crd.ge.COM> Date: Wed, 3 Apr 91 21:03:41 GMT In article <3310@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>, davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr) writes: > Not unless someone just added PC emulation to the Cray2... lots of net > code assumes 32 bits, assumes int {same as} long, assumes 2's complement > arithmetic, and assumes you can get exactly four chars in an int. Yes, and porting this code to an 80286 is unlikely to be any easier than porting it to a 64-bit machine... and probably harder since *you* can at least fit 32-bit values into a 64-bit integer. And then on top of all that we have all the segmentation woes. > It's possible to do tricky stuff in a portable way, and if you think > about it when writing the code it's even easy. When you try to port > someone else's code it gets to be a nightmare. Compared to Xenix 286 it's a mere melodrama. -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' peter@ferranti.com +1 713 274 5180. 'U` "Have you hugged your wolf today?"