C to D, HtoD fails

[Stewart Gordon]

Steve Horne wrote:
> On Sat, 09 Sep 2006 23:40:47 +0100, Stewart Gordon 
> <smjg_1998 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
>> BCS wrote:
>> <snip>
>>> Far is an old hack (part of the standard but ugly as watever) to 
>>> allow a 16 bit computer to access a 32bit address space without 
>>> wasting lots of time.
>> 
>> Under a 32-bit system, there's no such distinction as that between 
>> near and far pointers.
> 
> Being extremely pedantic, I think it's possible to compile for a 
> memory model with far pointers that are bigger than 32-bit.

Do such compilers/languages actually call it "far"?  Could be confusing....

Interesting facts: The ZX Spectrum (16K/48K models at least) was an
8-bit machine with a flat 16-bit address space.  16-bit on PCs relies on
both 16-bit (near) and 32-bit (far) memory addresses.  32-bit systems
have a flat 32-bit address space.

If the pattern had continued, then 64-bit systems would have both 32-bit 
and 64-bit pointers.  (OK, so if they're going to still be able to run 
32-bit apps....)

> Even 32 bit processors could have >4GB memory.
<snip>

I'd be surprised to see more than 4GB on the _processor_....

Stewart.

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