Re: The integral type 'byte' (was Re: Suggested method for returning a string from a C program?)

On Fri, 28 Mar 2025 11:22:58 +0100
Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> wrote:

On 28.03.2025 10:13, David Brown wrote:

[...] 

 
David, you are not writing anything here that wasn't already addressed
by me or others before, so we can skip that. (And possibly agree to
disagree.)
 

[ NS32032 ] 

 
Indeed.  After all, the 68k was one of the most successful ISAs
ever, and the x86 "won" for economic reasons, not technical
reasons.  The NS32000, on the other hand, is known only to a few
nerds. [...] 

 
Given that it did not "survive" in the first place I was astonished
that when I spoke with IT professionals in the past it was mentioned
as outstanding (compared to a lot of other alternatives these days).
I was also astonished that bart had it in his short-list. So I'm not
inclined to accept your words that it's "known only to a few nerds".
(It's not necessarily the best technologies that "survive".) YMMV.
 
Janis
 

I did a project with NS32K offspring somewhere around 1993-1994.
At that time NS lost all ambitions of selling 32K into lucrative
PC/workstation market. The chip in question was cheap "embedded
microprocessor" that competed with Intel i960, AMD 29K and Moto 68300
primarily on price. I did not make a wide research of available parts,
back then it was not my job. But my educated guess would be that the
part I used and which exact number I don't remember was one of the
cheapest 32-bit embedded CPUs of the time and one of the slowest if not
The Slowest. For us it didn't matter. What mattered was ability to
address plenty of so called ARAM. (a DRAM sold for fraction of normal
DRAM price because it had small number of defective cells, intended
primarily for audio applications). Since performance didn't matter, I
had no reasons to learn details of CPU architecture.
It was a side project, most of my time I was doing other things. So I
managed to complete a job without knowing much about NS32 ISA. And of
course since then I forgot even a little that I had to know about it.

Later on, on web, nearly all mentions of  NS32K I encountered were in
context of examples of extreme CISC. I.e. MUCH CISCier than x86,
significantly CISCier than even such rather heavy CISCs as VAX and
MC68020. Of course, not quite complicated as Intel iAPX 432. So, it
seems, it is remembered, but not in a good way.