🚀 go-pugleaf

In <BzF8Ju.LrG@csfb1.fir.fbc.com> jbrock@csfb1.fir.fbc.com (John Brock) writes:

> A question for you DECie techie types from a total outsider.  Does the
> new Alpha architecture have native 64 bit integers?  How are they
> organized?  As a natural extension of DEC's little endian 32 bit
> integers?  Or something else?
Here's an output of the first chunk of 'enquire'

SIZES
char = 8 bits, signed
short=16 int=32 long=64 float=32 double=64 bits 
char*=64 bits BEWARE! larger than int!
int* =64 bits BEWARE! larger than int!
func*=64 bits BEWARE! larger than int!
Type size_t is unsigned long
Type size_t is unsigned long

ALIGNMENTS
char=1 short=2 int=4 long=8
float=4 double=8
char*=8 int*=8 func*=8

CHARACTER ORDER
short: BA
int:   DCBA
long:  HGFEDCBA

> Will Alpha C compilers have 16 bit shorts, 32 bit ints, and 64 bit
> longs?  Will FORTRAN have INTEGER*8?

Fortran INTEGERs appear to be 4 bytes. I do not know if the language has
extensions for providing longer INTEGERS.

> bit.  It seems to me that with 64 bits to play around in there is even
> more potential for incompatabilities and big/little endian type warfare
> than with 32 bits, so I hope somebody is thinking about this.

Indeed there is - I've just finished (I think) porting about 3meg of source
to the Alpha. It was a Fortran and C mix so I needed to think a lot about the
size of fortran integers when accessed within C. Personally I think a big
endian 64bit machine would pose even more problems.

	James

-- 
James Bonfield (jkb@mrc-lmba.cam.ac.uk / rince@dcs.warwick.ac.uk)
Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Hills Road,
Cambridge, CB2 2QH, England. Tel: 0223 402499   Fax: 0223 412282