XPost: alt.comp.os.windows-xp, alt.windows7.general, microsoft.public.windowsxp.general

In message <[email protected]> at Fri, 29 Dec
2023 15:27:29, Frank Slootweg <[email protected]d> writes

Steve Hayes <[email protected]> wrote:

On 19 Nov 2023 19:34:29 GMT, Frank Slootweg <[email protected]d>
wrote:

Steve Hayes <[email protected]> wrote:

On 17 Nov 2023 16:16:59 GMT, Frank Slootweg <[email protected]d>
wrote:

Steve Hayes <[email protected]> wrote:

Someone stole my laptop computer, and I'm beginning to be concerned
that it may be irreplaceable.

It was running Windows 7, 32-bit, and it seems that most, if not all, >> >> >> laptops sold nowadays with Windows installed are 64-bit, which means >> >> >> they won't run a lot of my software, and that means that they won't
allow me to access a lot of the research data I have collected over
the last 30 years.

64-bit Windows systems can run 32-bit software/programs just fine, so >> >> >I think you mean you (also) have *16-bit* software/programs which you
need to run. Correct?

Yes, and 8-bit ones too. 32-bit Windows runs those just fine, at least
all the ones I use regularly. There are some it doesn't, but that's a
hardware rather than an O/S problem, something to do with clock speed.
Programs written in TurboPascal, for example, won't run on faster
machines.

"8-bit ones" sounds a bit strange, because all (IBM-like) PCs have
always been 16-bit. But perhaps you mean byte-level interpretive code or
some such. Can you give some more details about these "8-bit ones"?

I think early programs running on IBM PC DOS or MS DOS were 8-bit,
running on 8088 processors. The 286 and 386 ones were 16-bit.

The usual confusion about the 'bit-ness'! :-)

The 8088 is actually a 16-bit processor, because it has 16-bit
registers, etc.. But the width of the *data* bus is 8-bit. The
instruction set is named 'x86-16'.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_8088>

I'm pretty sure the original IBM PC used the 8086, which was a 16-bit
processor (though in some incarnations took two goes to get 16-bit data
or instructions, over an 8-bit bus). The 8086 came _after_ the 8088; not
sure what the 8088 was. The 6 in 8086 meant 16 bit, I'm pretty sure.

The 80186 was a rare beast - I don't think the core processor was much
if any more powerful (by whatever mention you like), but the chip had
some on-board bits that were normally implemented externally. The BBC
Micro "second processor" board used it, offering a weird sort of PC
(using Dr. DOS, IIRR); I don't know any other machine that used it.

Likewise, the 80286 is also a 16-bit processor, but with a 16-bit data
bus and also a 'x86-16' instruction set (with extensions).

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_80286>

The 80386 is a 32-bit processor, with a 16-bit or 32-bit databus and a
'x86-32' instruction set.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I386>

As far as I know, none of the x86 processors were 8-bit processors.

For 386 and 486, the confusingly changed what "SX" and "DX" meant; on
one (I forget which), SX meant it _didn't_ have a floating-point maths co-processor on board, DX meant it did. On the other, SX meant it had a half-width (so 16?) bus outside the chip (so requiring two fetches to
get a word), DX had more pins on the chip. Motherboards for the one that
might or might not have the co-processor on chip often had a socket for
an external co-processor - I think that was the '387, so it's probably
the 3 series that was that. There were rumours as the time that 386SX
and 387 chips were actually 386DX chips that had failed at final test
but where the main processor or the co-processor part had passed; I've
no idea if there was any truth in that. (Certainly, a few years earlier,
the same sort of principle _had_ been used with SRAM chips - ones of a
certain size were available in two versions, one with one of the enable
pins active high and one active low, which were actually SRAMs of twice
the size which had failed final test but either the upper or lower half worked.)

So consequently, also the IBM PC DOS and MS-DOS programs were 16-bit.

[No longer relevant stuff deleted.]

Anyway, I have now acquired a 2nd-hand Dell with a 30-bit Windows 10
OS, and my DOS programs appear to run on it, so I'm not going to need
VirtualBox just yet.

Great! Good outcome!

Indeed! (32 bit I presume!)

But thanks to everyone who replied on the Windows question (the time
discussion was less useful).

You're welcome.

--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

he was eventually struck off by the BMA in 1968 for not knowing his gluteus maximus from his humerus.

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