michaelk@azure.UUCP (Michael Kersenbrock) (02/10/84)
Yep, if the 68000 is a 32 bitter (you could also argue that the 8080 and, yes, the 8008 are 16 bitters with their 16 bit register(s) HL, ...) :-)
kevinw%isl@BRL.ARPA (02/22/84)
sorry, wrongo on your analysis. the 68k may be called a 32 bit machine because
it fully supports 32 bit ops, even tho it only has a 16 bit alu. try doing a
xra a
lxi h,count
loop:
dcx h
jnz loop
or some equivalent with sub/add (hl,..)... z80 (and 8080) doesn't use
flags for 16 bit ops. thus this is really only an 8 bit machine with some
(limited) 16 bit capability. contrast this to a 6502 which only thinks
in terms of bytes... try to get a lemon like an 8086 to do 32 bit
ops... well, it is to 16 bits what the 6502 is to 8 bits (and notice
which two chips have taken over their respective markets.
i still want to see a compiler which will handle 100k long arrays, etc
for the 86 without having the programmer fudge around. (intel's won't
even let you have a 64k array -- allocates 0k for it (no overflow...)
cheers,
-- Kevin
kevinw@su-dsn