> The PDP-10 had arbitrarily sized byte pointers! Did anybody ever implement a C compiler on that hardware? > > https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3153141/defining-a-byte-in-c > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/36-bit > > As DIGEX teased the VAX weenies at DECUS: > > “If you’re not playing with 36 bits, you’re not playing with a full DEC!" > > -Don > Re: PDP-10 backend for gcc https://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2000-09/msg00073.html ftp://kermit.columbia.edu/kermit/dec20/assembler-guide.txt 2.12. Byte Instructions In the PDP-10 a "byte" is some number of contiguous bits within one word. A byte pointer is a word that describes the byte. There are three parts to the description of a byte: the word (i.e., address) in which the byte occurs, the position of the byte within the word, and the length of the byte. A byte pointer has the following format: Bit 000000 000011 1 1 1111 112222222222333333 Position 012345 678901 2 3 4567 890123456789012345 _________________________________________ | | | | | | | | POS | SIZE |U|I| X | Y | |______|______|_|_|____|__________________| - POS is the byte position: the number of bits remaining in the word to the right of the byte. - SIZE is the byte size in bits. - The U field is reserved for future use and must be zero. - I, X, and Y are the same as in an instruction. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: