Some early compilers such as THINK C for the Mac weren't very strict about typing when taking the address of an object. So for example you could do: unsigned i

Some early compilers such as THINK C for the Mac weren't very strict about typing when taking the address of an object. So for example you could do: unsigned int x; unsigned int * x_addr = &x; unsigned int x_addr_addr = &(&x); (or arbitrarily many levels of "address-of") and you'd just get the same address.