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To someone who was around at the time, this sounds silly. Is the Commodore 64 then a 16-bit machine, because its address pointers are 16 bits? No, the Amiga a
by teddyh 6mo ago
To someone who was around at the time, this sounds silly. Is the Commodore 64 then a 16-bit machine, because its address pointers are 16 bits? No, the Amiga and related 68000-based machines were generally considered to be 16-bit machines, and their predecessors were all considered to be 8-bit machines.
- LocalH 6mo agoThe 6510 operates internally as an 8-bit processor. The 68000 operates internally as a 32-bit processor for the most part - instructions are 32-bit aligned, registers are 32-bit. We don't consider the original IBM 5150 PC to be an "8-bit" machine even though the situation is very similar to the 68000 - internal 16-bit operation, but 8-bit data bus. The 68000 series has always been 32-bit, even if some implementations have used 16-bit connectivity to the rest of the board. Thus, the Amiga has also always been a 32-bit platform. Would you consider early version of MacOS to be running on a "24-bit" platform, since the high byte of pointers was often used for non-addressing functionality? No, the 68k Mac has also always been a 32-bit platform, since day one, albeit one that wasn't always "32-bit clean". The Amiga never had this issue, however.