Randall Hyde's essay "Which assembler is the best?"

From: Dennis Chang (den.chang_at_rogers.com)
Date: 04/28/04 

Date: Wed, 28 Apr 2004 21:13:21 GMT

Hi,

I'm reading Randall Hyde's essay and I was wondering if someone will qualify
Randall's statement that most modern operating systems use 32-bit flat
memory model?
I figure most modern OS's would chose to use the segmented memory model.

Here's the quote below.

Thanks,
Dennis.

http://webster.cs.ucr.edu/AsmTools/WhichAsm.html

16-Bit Support?
"This question is actually answered by the choice of operating system. If an
assembler supports DOS it supports 16-bit operation, if it doesn't support
DOS, it probably doesn't support 16-bit coding. Note that all assemblers
provide the ability to write code that uses 16-bit operands. 16-bit support,
in this context, means the ability to produce code running in a 16-bit
segmented memory model (versus the 32-bit flat memory model used by most
modern operating systems). Outside of DOS, about the only place 16-bit code
will be useful is in certain embedded systems (though even this is fading as
embedded designers choose powerful 32-bit embedded OSes for their
products)."

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