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The transition from 32 bit to 64 bit words was a missed opportunity to move from 8 bit to 32 bit bytes, which would have greatly simplified the fundamental aspe
by BlueTemplar 6y ago
The transition from 32 bit to 64 bit words was a missed opportunity to move from 8 bit to 32 bit bytes, which would have greatly simplified the fundamental aspect that is dealing with text in computers.
- colejohnson66 6y agoSome architectures use 8 bit bytes, but not really. What I mean is: some architectures require a word bigger than 8 bits (16+) be aligned. As in: to read a 32 bit word from memory, the first octet must have an address ending in two zero bits. But if you want to read only a byte, alignment doesn’t matter. IIRC, ARM used to have this “alignment” requirement.
- BlueTemplar 6y agoWhy ? When ?