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From: ping@ping.actrix.gen.nz (Peter Ingham)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: 8-bit death
Message-ID: <160.tnews@ping.actrix.gen.nz>
Date: 4 May 91 13:08:07 GMT
Organization: Who needs organizations? I'm a person!!
Lines: 24

Quoted from <...unknown> by jbickers@templar.actrix.gen.nz (John Bickers):
> Quoted from <1991May1.064455.3058@kessner.denver.co.us> by david@kessner.denver.co.us (David Kessner):
> 
> > the instruction set to it's registers indicate this.  MS-DOS fully
> > utilizes all of the 8088 features, so I will classify it as a 16 bit OS.
> 
>     When one calls an MS-DOS "interrupt" (haw, reminds me of the C= 64),
>     isn't the interrupt number a byte?
> 
>     That's a fundamental part of the OS that is only 8 bits.
> 

Not quite, 808x software & hardware interrupts use 8-bit identifiers to 
allow the O/S to know from whence the interrupt originated.  
This is a Hardware design restraint rather than a feature (or lack of it) 
in any particular 808x OS.


--
Cheers

    Peter S. Ingham        ping@ping.actrix.gen.nz
    Lower Hutt,			
    New Zealand