Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!stanford.edu!neon.Stanford.EDU!torrie From: torrie@cs.stanford.edu (Evan Torrie) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy Subject: Re: 8-bit death (was Re: What the heck IS "Interactive TV"?) Message-ID: <1991Apr22.021234.23673@neon.Stanford.EDU> Date: 22 Apr 91 02:12:34 GMT References: <1991Apr21.152513.23054@sugar.hackercorp.com> <10944@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> <1991Apr21.195406.25574@sugar.hackercorp.com> Sender: torrie@neon.Stanford.EDU (Evan James Torrie) Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University, Ca , USA Lines: 23 peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) writes: >In article <10944@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> blissmer@expert.cc.purdue.edu (Corey) writes: >> >MS-DOS is an 8-bit operating system. As is MacOS (a VW Beetle with a great >> >sound system). >> Hmm. Are you REAL sure about that. I thought the MacOS was _always_ 16 bit >The 68000 is a 32-bit processor, but the Mac O/S was designed with the same >sort of address space limitations as CP/M. The only address space limitation in the original Mac OS was a 24-bit limit on pointers (and hence program addresses), since the upper 8 bits of a pointer address were used for memory management. [This is now fixed in System 7.0, following on from A/UX which fixed it 2-3 years ago]. There was at one point a 32K limit on resources in the Resource Manager, which meant segments of code could only be 32K. But this was fixed, I believe in the Mac Plus ROM of '86. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Evan Torrie. Stanford University, Class of 199? torrie@cs.stanford.edu Today's maxim: All socialists are failed capitalists