Portability and BS

[hutchson at convex.UUCP]

This alignment issue is not so simple.  In the IBM 360 family, the 360
machines required "ints" to be aligned mod 4; the 370 and
later processors did not.  In the M68xxx family, the 68008 imposes no
alignment restrictions; the 68000 requires "shorts" and "ints" to be aligned
mod 2; the 68010 (fill in the blank); the 68020 again relaxes the alignment
restrictions.
    Conclusion:  regardless of what your favorite language standard says,
if (2^n)-byte quantities (n<4) are not aligned mode (2^n), the resulting
program is not portable.  Having used various members of the 68000/360/600
families, I automatically align everything.  Tisn't difficult, not at all...