Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!hao!noao!arizona!lm
From: lm@arizona.edu (Larry McVoy)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: 16 & 32 bit vs 32 bit only instructions for RISC.
Message-ID: <4104@megaron.arizona.edu>
Date: 2 Mar 88 06:48:31 GMT
References: <9651@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP> <9678@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP> <2574@im4u.UUCP> <2116@saturn.ucsc.edu> <1697@winchester.mips.COM>
Reply-To: lm@megaron.arizona.edu (Larry McVoy)
Organization: University of Arizona, Tucson
Lines: 11

In article <1697@winchester.mips.COM> mash@winchester.UUCP (John Mashey) writes:
>-The UNIX kernel uses halfwords frequently, because it has large
>arrays of structs whosedatra must be tightly packed.  You might argue
>that some of these could be expanded (and they can), but others
>are painful.

You bet it's painful.  I recently worked on the Unix port to the ETA-10.
That machine does not support 16 bit ints.  Can you say OUCH?!?!  I knew
you could.
-- 

Larry McVoy	lm@arizona.edu or ...!{uwvax,sun}!arizona.edu!lm