The relevance of 16-bit systems (was: End-user uses for x86-64)

[Ben Scott]

On 2/17/07, Jim Kuzdrall <gnhlug at intrel.com> wrote:
>> That's not really true.  16-bit machines are *very* limited.  There
>> is not a whole lot you can do in 64 kilobytes of RAM ...
>
>     Not quite so.  As a programmer of embedded systems, I would point
> out that sales of microprocessors with address spaces of 16-bits (or
> less) exceed those of the larger machines by orders of magnitude.

  Okay, good point.  There actually is quite a bit you can do in small
address spaces.  I've never really done so myself, but I've read the
books and heard the stories.  Even better, you can often do many
different small tasks on a bunch of different small chips as cheaply
than you can do them on one big chip.  Or cheaper, even.  So perhaps
I'm maligning small chips unfairly.  I apologize to any 68000's or
Z80's I may have offended.  ;-)

  But that's not really the point I was driving at in that thread, either.  :)

-- Ben