Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!auspex!guy
From: guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: 80486 vs. 68040 code size [really: how many regs]
Message-ID: <1718@auspex.auspex.com>
Date: 31 May 89 17:19:36 GMT
References: <948@aber-cs.UUCP> <8125@killer.Dallas.TX.US> <427@ssp2.idca.tds.philips.nl> <1989May20.223228.2456@utzoo.uucp> <3252@epimass.EPI.COM> <1989May30.171335.473@utzoo.uucp>
Reply-To: guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris)
Organization: Auspex Systems, Santa Clara
Lines: 14

>>Henry, why do you say that 32-bit ints are "generally better" on
>>68000's and 68010's? ...
>
>16-bit ints are a bit limiting at times.  Admittedly this is not common,
>but it is a nuisance.  And then there are the sloppy programmers ...

Note also that, at least in the case of vendors who really wanted to
make 32-bit machines, that using the 680[01]0 as a 32-bit-"int" machine
meant that they could switch to the 68020 without requiring everybody to
recompile their code - Sun-2 binaries that doesn't use some Sun-2-only
hardware (I think the Sun-2 had a Sky Computers floating-point board
that fell into this category) can run on a Sun-3, modulo any
release-to-release binary incompatibilities, and I presume the same is
true of systems from Apollo, HP, and possibly others.