Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!crdgw1!uunet!fernwood!uupsi!sugar!peter From: peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy Subject: Re: 8-bit death (was Re: What the heck IS "Interactive TV"?) Message-ID: <1991May3.123816.5020@sugar.hackercorp.com> Date: 3 May 91 12:38:16 GMT References: <2brN02no07bc01@JUTS.ccc.amdahl.com> <1991Apr30.113840.2593@sugar.hackercorp.com> <43Eq02wy07X=01@JUTS.ccc.amdahl.com> Distribution: na Organization: Sugar Land Unix -- Houston, TX Lines: 20 In article <43Eq02wy07X=01@JUTS.ccc.amdahl.com> kls30@DUTS.ccc.amdahl.com (Kent L. Shephard) writes: > You confuse features and function. A 16bit OS DOES NOT have to have > multitasking to be 16bit. 16-bit is a label. Applied to a CPU it has one meaning. Applied to an O/S there really isn't any meaning to it: CP/M runs on 8-bit and 32-bit CPUs. OS/9 does too. But CP/M is an 8-bit O/S, and OS/9 is a 16-bit O/S. > It must also support the relavent data type. MS-DOS does both, ie. > 640k memory and 16bit data types. Operating systems don't address memory. Operating systems don't support data types. CPUs and compilers do. Operating systems provide services to application programs. I'm categorising the operating systems by the services generally provided by other operating systems written for a class of CPUs. It makes as much sense as intel's calling the 8088 a 16-bit chip. -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' .