Regarding 8-bit numbers, here's a thread on why 8 bits are enough and an old product that used that to good effect: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=102443

Regarding 8-bit numbers, here's a thread on why 8 bits are enough and an old product that used that to good effect: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10244398 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10244398 http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1140287 http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1140287 It's something that keeps getting rediscovered. I know embedded industry shoehorns all kinds of problems into 8- and 16-bitters. Some even use 4-bit MCU's. Might be worthwhile if someone does a survey of all the things you can handle easily or without too much work in 8-16-bit cores. This might help for people building systems out of existing parts or people trying to design heterogenous SOC's.