Meaning of "architecture width" - Re: 68K Macs with MacOS 7.5 still in production use...

js at cimmeri.com js at cimmeri.com
Thu Sep 15 19:17:32 CDT 2016


On 2016-09-15 2:38 PM, Noel Chiappa wrote:
>     > From: Chuck Guzis
>
>     > Call it anything you want, but we know what Motorola called it.
>
> The _first implementation_ may have been 16-bit, but I am in no doubt
> whatsover (having written a lot of assembler code for the 68K family)
> that the _architecture_ was 32-bit:
>
> - 32-bit registers
> - many operations (arithmetical, logical, etc) defined for that length
> - 32-bit addresses


Also, Apple Computer referred to it as a 32 bit microprocessor in their 
early Macintosh ads.   I always just considered it a 32 bit CPU with a 
16 bit external bus.

- J.


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