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Re: Queston about the word

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On Thu, 23 Jun 2011 14:16:27 +0100, Rainer Weikusat wrote:

> The usual meaning would be 'an integer whose width is equal to the
> width of the general-purpose integer registers of the machine'. 

That's one interpretation, but not the only one.

E.g. the 68000 had 32-bit registers but a 16-bit data bus, and used "word"
to mean 16 bits and "long" for 32 bits (e.g. mnemonics had a suffix of
".b", ".w" or ".l" to indicate byte/word/long = 8/16/32 bit operation).
Later variants with 8-bit (68008) or 32-bit (68020+) data buses retained
the terminology for compatibility.

On a system where the register width is equal to the external data bus
width and which requires reads to be word-aligned, the concept is
relatively clear-cut (although I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft
continues to use WORD => 16 bits even on ARM).

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Thread

Queston about the word Mateusz_madi <madi.czadi@gmail.com> - 2011-06-23 04:09 -0700
  Re: Queston about the word Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2011-06-23 13:59 +0100
    Re: Queston about the word Rainer Weikusat <rweikusat@mssgmbh.com> - 2011-06-23 14:16 +0100
      Re: Queston about the word Nobody <nobody@nowhere.com> - 2011-06-23 18:21 +0100
      Re: Queston about the word scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2011-06-24 00:43 +0000
    Re: Queston about the word Casper H.S. Dik <Casper.Dik@OrSPaMcle.COM> - 2011-06-23 13:29 +0000
    Re: Queston about the word Nomen Nescio <nobody@dizum.com> - 2011-06-24 04:56 +0200
      Re: Queston about the word Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2011-06-24 17:29 +0100

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