2 ms·
Getting an 8086 or 8088 to address more than 64 KByte of memory was just as much a PITA as on 8-bit computers though, on the 8086 you had to wrestle with 64 KBy
by flohofwoe 3y ago
Getting an 8086 or 8088 to address more than 64 KByte of memory was just as much a PITA as on 8-bit computers though, on the 8086 you had to wrestle with 64 KByte segments (selected via segment registers), and on 8-bitters one had to wrestle with bank switching - in the end both are pretty much the same thing except that 8086 systems moved the address decoding into the CPU.
- caf 3y agoI don't think this is right. The segment registers are significantly more ergonomic than bank switching: the separate CS and DS registers means it's very easy to work with an independent 64k of code and 64k of data (if you're working in assembler, you can have a separate stack too); the segment override prefixes make working with multiple segments simpler; and the built-in far call / return and far jump give you a nice hardware facility for making code seamlessly relocatable.