15 Sep
2016
15 Sep
'16
1:24 p.m.
> family) that the _architecture_ was 32-bit:
On Thu, 15 Sep 2016, Chuck Guzis wrote:
Hence my comment. It's a matter of what to
believe--Motorola or your
lyin' eyes. :)
Ah, but can the manufacturer be trusted?
What would motivate them to take a 32 bit processor and CALL it 16 bit?
Was that a marketing decision? "We can call it a good competitive 32 bit
processor, or we can make an indisputable claim that it is the BEST 16 bit
processor!"
'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in
rather a scornful tone, 'it
means just what I choose it to mean ? neither more nor less.'
There are more than a hundred different parameters involved.
There is no definitive agreement as to which parameter is to be used for
the classification, nor even which parameterS.
Whenever somebody has the efrontery to build a product that has one
classification by one parameter, and a different classification by another
parameter, there will be disputed classifications, since different
parameters are more or less important to each viewer.
Few, if any processors could be unambiguously classified.
What size is a
Z80?
8088?
8086?
80286?
6809?
Everybody here can agree that that is a stupid question,
because the list of answers is "OBVIOUS". And yet a comparison of
answers WILL have discrepancies.
Register size would be an obvious one. But, as soon as provision is made
for accessing half registers and double ones, it is open to variant
interpretations even of what the register size is.
Should we classify them, instead by their heat output?
Which part of the elephant are we looking at?
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com