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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!ecn-pc!mdm
From: mdm@ecn-pc.UUCP (Mike D McEvoy)
Newsgroups: net.micro
Subject: Re: 386 Family Products
Message-ID: <435@ecn-pc.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 3-Dec-85 13:44:44 EST
Article-I.D.: ecn-pc.435
Posted: Tue Dec  3 13:44:44 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 6-Dec-85 06:43:40 EST
References: <129@intelca> <4400130@uiucdcsb> <6185@utzoo.UUCP> <433@ecn-pc.UUCP> <434@ecn-pc.UUCP>
Reply-To: mdm@ecn-pc.UUCP (Mike D McEvoy)
Organization: Cybotech Product Development Lab
Lines: 29

In article <434@ecn-pc.UUCP> wdm@ecn-pc.UUCP (Tex) writes:
>>>As in "I'll be rich if I can only convince my program to run on this
>>>@%&$^%$#!& processor with those @$#@#&^%&! 64KB segments!"?  :-) :-)
>>>				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
>
>>2) High level languages make this problem transparent to the user.
>>   The majority of the free world refuses to use asssembler other than
>>   when necessary and rarely does a module exceed 64k.  
>
>     Modules rarely exceed 64k in length, but what about entire programs?
>     What about "modules" which have to call other "modules" that are
>     not in the same segment?  How about compiler models?  How do they
>     impact execution speed?  

I don't know of anyone who "likes" the 808X family better than the 680X0.
Nor will I dispute that the segmented architecture can degrade (significantly)
the performance of the Intel products in many "real world" situations.  
In the vast majority of situations, the problem is made transparent to the 
PROGRAMMER using high level languages.  That does not imply that it will occur 
without a penalty such as a more complex compiler or a degrading of performance
due to an increase in overhead or that it is often necessary to "code around"
the problems that a (64k) segmented architecture causes.  Last I heard, 
TANSTAAFL still ruled the world.

Thank heaven that a good compiler can help hide strange hardware from the 
programmer.