Ask HN: Why do we have only 32 bit and 64 bit OS?

2 pointsby venkat1017vor 5 Jahren8 comments

8 comments

Because it's quite difficult to find a PDP10 or DECsystem-20 today...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOPS-10

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TENEX_(operating_system)

beardywvor 5 Jahren

I worked on ICL computers in the 1970s with 24 bit words made up of four 6 bit bytes. Having just 64 characters limited text output a lot. Having 8 bits was much better and it stuck.

Using 4 or 8 of those is just about address space.

rurbanvor 5 Jahren

Because 8-16 bit cpu's are fine without. Eg baremetal AVR firmware comes without all the OS bloat, it does one thing only.

db48xvor 5 Jahren

What other sizes would you like?

LinuxBendervor 5 Jahren

Whatever gets us closer to The Custodian [1]

[1] - https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Custodian

URfejkvor 5 Jahren

42. The right answer is always 42.

:)

db48xvor 5 Jahren

detarovor 5 Jahren

because that's what's native to the processors we have.