You mean a 64bit architecture literally cannot handle an 8bit instruction as its smallest register is 16bit without swapping modes? Where did you get that piec

You mean a 64bit architecture literally cannot handle an 8bit instruction as its smallest register is 16bit without swapping modes? Where did you get that piece of misinformation from? 64-bit x86 can handle 64, 32, 16, and 8-bit data just fine, and its instructions are still byte-aligned. Also, the decision to remove 16-bit support from 64-bit Windows was entirely political. NTVDMx64 adds it back.