> I think that the face of computing would have changed quite dramatically if Intel had decided to make the x86 segment paragraph size 256 bytes (8 bits) instea

> I think that the face of computing would have changed quite dramatically if Intel had decided to make the x86 segment paragraph size 256 bytes (8 bits) instead of the useless 4 bits. I've made that argument in the past too, but I tend to think the 8-bit paragraph shift would've been a nice third mode on the 286 (or maybe a second mode on the 186). So a 286 would've had: * Real mode with 4 bit shift * Real mode with 8 bit shift * Protected mode with indirection through descriptor tables It seems plausible to me that it would've been possible to make software that would have binary compatible with either of the two real modes, which was not possible between real and protected. That would've opened up 286 users to easier access to memory beyond 1MB. But I don't know that this would've been a huge change for the industry, aside from killing off the need for LIM/EMS bank switching between 1985 and its death at the hands of Windows 3.0 in 1990. (And towards the later end of that period, the 386 could be made to provide EMS memory without additional hardware.) I think the best argument for it being a major change is that it might have undermined the need for OS/2.... but even then, OS/2 was the way it was, not due to memory constraints, but due to IBM's need to attempt to regain control of a market it'd lost control over. So 8-bit paragraphs would've been nice for big spreadsheet/dBase users in the 1986-88 period, but not much nore than that. (And all of this is just five or six years, really.... no time at all.)