Article View: comp.arch
Article #20708Re: looking for >32-bit address spa
From: aglew
Date: Sun, 09 Apr 1989 00:43
Date: Sun, 09 Apr 1989 00:43
20 lines
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1552 bytes
> Elxsi has 32 bit pointers but 64-bit registers. We originally made
>ints 32 and longs 64, and did manage to port sys V, but it was a real
>pain. Customers screamed, and we changed to 32 bit longs and 64 bit
>long longs. Networking code -- both ATT & third party -- is full of
>the 16/32/32 short/int/long assumption.
Sorry, I can't resist this - things like this reinforce my belief that
the people who put networking into the kernel hacked and kluged (I was
going to say "Were a bunch of XXXX hackers", but that might be unfair.
They don't even have the excuse of being the first - there were several
preceding implementations, both user and kernel. But I guess they thought
that any dirty trick that might get them a bit faster was worthwhile.
> HP had a pre-Spectrum project called Beta which had 64 bit registers
>and 64-bit pointers, with 16 bits of segment and 48 bits of offset. The
>idea was that even the largest databases could be made directly byte
>addressable. I don't know how they were going to deal with it in C.
Doesn't C require that a pointer fit into a long?
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Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!uxc!uxc.cso.uiuc.edu!mcdurb!aglew From: aglew@mcdurb.Urbana.Gould.COM Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: looking for >32-bit address spa Message-ID: <28200298@mcdurb> Date: 9 Apr 89 00:43:00 GMT References: <2569@elxsi.UUCP> Lines: 20 Nf-ID: #R:elxsi.UUCP:2569:mcdurb:28200298:000:1101 Nf-From: mcdurb.Urbana.Gould.COM!aglew Apr 8 19:43:00 1989