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- Path: mash.engr.sgi.com!mash
- From: mash@mash.engr.sgi.com (John R. Mashey)
- Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++,comp.programming,comp.arch
- Subject: Re: Why are 32 bit better than 16 bit pgms?
- Date: 7 Feb 1996 05:42:17 GMT
- Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.
- Message-ID: <4f9e3p$alp@murrow.corp.sgi.com>
- References: <4er4m4$78q@news1.ucsd.edu> <1996Feb5.163838.24531@amc.com> <1996Feb6.135808.12257@friend.kastle.com>
- NNTP-Posting-Host: mash.engr.sgi.com
-
- In article <1996Feb6.135808.12257@friend.kastle.com>, rich@kastle.com (Richard Krehbiel) writes:
- |>
- |> curtis@amc.com (Curtis Green) wrote:
- |>
- |> >The "bits" quoted for the processor (16 bit, 32 bit, 64 bit, etc) is the
- |> >size of the data path (data bus).
- One more time, since this has been discussed here about every 6 months:
- through computer history, there has been one overpoweringly common usage:
-
- An N-bit architecture has an ISA with N-bit integer registers.
-
- Implementations of such an architecture can vary all over the map:
- 1) FP registers frequently have different sizes [>=N]
- 2) Internal busses, even the integer ones, occasionally use different
- sizes [<= N]
- 3) External busses frequently have different sizes [=N, <N, >N]
-
-
- |> My humble opinion:
- |>
- |> "Bitness" has become a marketing term, i.e. meaningless (rather like
- |> the term "RISC"). There are a dozen different pieces inside a CPU
-
- Consider studying computer history more or reading this newsgroup more often ...
-
- 1) This term has had a long and consistent history of use, with only
- occasional excursions into marketing aberration (i.e., like calling
- the i860 a 64-bit processor).
-
- 2) The topic has been discussed here often.
-
- --
- -john mashey DISCLAIMER: <generic disclaimer, I speak for me only, etc>
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