So ability to operate on 1x 64 bit number and some change if loaded all
at once.
How many instructions do you think it would take to add/subtract 2x
64 bit integers? vs 2x 32 bit integers on such a machine?
Not to mention having to implement and debug this logic in assembly on a teletype
vs using a native instruction.. (see "Extended Instruction Set (EIS)" in same link)
Noone would have considered 64 bits at all because it would have been a huge
hassle and not worth it, even beyond thinking ahead in this way..
Besides.. if 'the last OS I worked on' was probably the 1st or second interactive timesharing system ever written, give or take (e.g MULTICS/ITS), and I worked on it at a low level, because thats what people did, chances are, I might have talked to the person who came up with the idea on how to store the time on that system.. who conceivably could be the 2nd or 3rd person ever to actually implement this, ever.. And if this is the case, don't you think, that person would have thought about it somewhat?
Programmers at that time were many times much better at these things
than now..
(which itself was posted in 1983 concerning the same topic...)
I'd suggest spinning up some SIM-H VM's and mucking around for a while with
early unices (v5,v7,32V,4.3BSD), and probably ITS or TOPS-10/TWENEX as well ...
it is quite illuminating and very insightful.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDP-11_architecture#CPU_regist...
5x 16 bit registers.
So ability to operate on 1x 64 bit number and some change if loaded all at once.
How many instructions do you think it would take to add/subtract 2x 64 bit integers? vs 2x 32 bit integers on such a machine?
Not to mention having to implement and debug this logic in assembly on a teletype vs using a native instruction.. (see "Extended Instruction Set (EIS)" in same link)
Noone would have considered 64 bits at all because it would have been a huge hassle and not worth it, even beyond thinking ahead in this way..
Besides.. if 'the last OS I worked on' was probably the 1st or second interactive timesharing system ever written, give or take (e.g MULTICS/ITS), and I worked on it at a low level, because thats what people did, chances are, I might have talked to the person who came up with the idea on how to store the time on that system.. who conceivably could be the 2nd or 3rd person ever to actually implement this, ever.. And if this is the case, don't you think, that person would have thought about it somewhat?
Programmers at that time were many times much better at these things than now..
See also: http://catb.org/jargon/html/story-of-mel.html
(which itself was posted in 1983 concerning the same topic...)
I'd suggest spinning up some SIM-H VM's and mucking around for a while with early unices (v5,v7,32V,4.3BSD), and probably ITS or TOPS-10/TWENEX as well ... it is quite illuminating and very insightful.