Re: VMS

On 6/27/25 1:40 PM, rbowman wrote:

On Fri, 27 Jun 2025 13:24:06 -0400, c186282 wrote:
 

   Some of us are old enough to remember when CPUs were
    not always 4/8/16/32/64 ... plus even now they've added a lot of new
    types like 128-bit ints. Simply ASSUMING an int is 16 bits is
    'usually safe' but not necessarily 'best practice' and limits future
    (or past) compatibility. 'C' lets you fly free ...
    but that CAN be straight into a window pane

 Assuming an int is 16 bits is not a good idea. I wouldn't even assume a
short is 16 bits

   Voice of experience for sure. Things have been
   represented/handled just SO many ways over the
   years. Using sizeof() is 'best practice' even
   if you're Just Sure how wide an int or whatever
   may be. 24 bits are still found in some DSPs
   and you MAY be asked someday to patch or port
   one of the old 12/18/24/36/48 programs.
   Ah ! Found a list of many CPUs, starting with
   the Babbage engine (50-bit words) :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_(computer_architecture)#Table_of_word_sizes