Re: equivalent to far in linux/unix

From: Andre Majorel (amajorel_at_teezer.fr)
Date: 08/31/04 

Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 01:12:57 +0000 (UTC)

On 2004-08-30, Rich Teer <rich.teer@rite-group.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 30 Aug 2004, Andrew Falanga wrote:
>
>> Thank you all for your responses. Sounds like this won't be as much a
>> deal as I thought. Whoever, or whomever, thought up virtual memory ...
>> thank you. This other models sounds rather like a pain to work with.
>
> Virtual memory has only been around, oh, about 10 years BEFORE the
> first version of DOS shipped. That such hacks such as "near" and
> "far" show how brain damaged the design of the original x86 was* and
> how brain damaged DOS was, even in the era of 386 and newer x86 CPUs.
>
> * The equivelent Motorola chip, the 68000 did not make such a mistake.
> What a shame the designers of the original IBM PC didn't chose this
> much better CPU for their creation...

Agreed, but... I read somewhere that designing the PC around the
68000 would have increased its price by 20% or 30%. I haven't
found a detailed discussion of how they arrived at that figure,
but I imagine that one of the factors is that 68000 code is not
as compact since all addresses are 32-bit.

Pity, really, considering the repulsive mess that is the 8086
instruction set. 

-- 
André Majorel <URL:http://www.teaser.fr/~amajorel/>
Conscience is what hurts when everything else feels so good.

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