Huh ? Please explain the difference between what Paul and I stated and what
you wrote below. They all look the same to me.... ?
Best regards, Steven C.
[h]ere in
California, the cultural and computing center of the
universe (you're suppose to laugh at this point), a "byte" was always
8 bits, half-word was 16 bits (or a short-word) and a word was 32
bits (or a long-word). Steven C.
This must be a different California from the one that developed 4.3BSD
for the VAX, a machine on which a byte is 8 bits, a word 16, and 32 is
a long (or more formally longword) - terminology inherited in large
part (in toto?) from the PDP-11 and for some reason I do not understand
not updated to match the VAX.
/~\ The ASCII der Mouse
"word" for 16 bits and "longword"
for 32 bits IS the VAX terminology.
The VAX kept the PDP-11 terminology for the simple reason that the VAX
was supposed to be seen as an upward compatible extension of the
PDP-11. That's clear from the PDP-11 instruction set emulation, of
course. It's also clear from the data formats used -- not just the
integer data but also F and D float come straight from the PDP-11,
even though on a VAX those layouts look very contorted.
paul