Re: Macintosh LC...need info on this =) TIA

[Matt Jenkins <mdj@bilby.cs.rmit.edu.au>]

Paul Schlyter <pausch@saaf.se> wrote:
> In article <3a2b2149@naylor.cs.rmit.edu.au>,
> Matt Jenkins  <mdj@bilby.cs.rmit.edu.au> wrote:
>  
>> Roy and/or Janet Miller <millers@inetnebr.com> wrote:
>> > frankc wrote:
>> 
>>>> I think to keep in the spirit of early Apple machines maybe we should
>>>> service the needs of users of older Macs.  I do not own any newer Macs,
>>>> but I do own some of the older 8/16 bits versions (Is the 68000 8-bit?)
>> 
>>> The 68000 is generally rated as a 16/32 bit chip (kinda like the 8088
>>> was an 8/16 bit chip)
>> 
>> I think you mean 32/24 bit chip. The 68000 has real 32 bit instructions,
>  
> Yep -- 32-bit ADD/SUBTRACT but only 16-bit MULTIPLY/DIVIDE....

IIRC, 16 bit M/D with 32 bit result...

>> real 32 bit registers, etc. It is indeed a 32 bit processor. The only
>> 'problem' is that the address bus of the thing can only use 24 bits to
>> address memory, and hence you're limited to 16mb of ram on a 68k.
>  
> The 68000 was a 16/32 bit chip, because the size of the external data
> bus was 16 bits, not 24 bits.  The 8088 is considered an 8/16 bit chip,
> even thouhg its address bus was 20 bits.

These are implementation issues. By this rationale the 65816 in the IIgs
is an 8/16 bit chip with a 16/24 bit address bus. 

These details matter little, IMHO

-- 
              Matt(hew) Jenkins. Computer Science (RMIT Bundoora)
                           email: mdj@cs.rmit.edu.au
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