On 2016-09-15 2:38 PM, Noel Chiappa wrote:
    > From: Chuck Guzis

    > Call it anything you want, but we know what Motorola called it.

The _first implementation_ may have been 16-bit, but I am in no doubt
whatsover (having written a lot of assembler code for the 68K family)
that the _architecture_ was 32-bit:

- 32-bit registers
- many operations (arithmetical, logical, etc) defined for that length
- 32-bit addresses

GPR width, being the visible programmer model, is the most common and convenient definition of "architecture" I've come across. But there's no reason we can't just say the *visible* architecture is 32 bit (which it is), but the "internal" architecture is sort of 16.

Why not have two concepts? They're free. Gordon Bell probably laid this out somewhere. Or Blaauw and Brooks.

--Toby


Etc, etc, etc, etc.

        Noel


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