64 bit architectures and C/C++

[Henry Spencer]

In article <6659 at gssc.UUCP> timr at gssc.UUCP (Tim Roberts) writes:
>What if your 64 bit architecture doesn't have any instructions to deal with
>16 bit units?  ...

Then it's going to be in big trouble trying to implement TCP/IP...!

>The point is this:  C data types are intended to map into the fundamental
>operating units of the underlying hardware.  Discussing the correctness of
>C data type sizing on 64-bit machines in the general case is a pointless waste 
>of network bandwidth.

Not really.  There are some really sticky questions even for well-designed
64-bit machines, where there is no strong a priori preference for one
scheme or the other.
-- 
And the bean-counter replied,           | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
"beans are more important".             |  henry at zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry