Re: x86 Hardware Trivia Question

Charles A. Crayne wrote:
> How much memory could the Intel 8086/8088 processor address?
>
> Please note that I am asking about the capabilities of the chip itself, not
> the way IBM decided to use it.

Physically, or logically?

Physically, due to only having 20 address lines, would be 1MB. However
with things like banked switched memory (aka EMS), you could address
more.

Logically, a segment register can be any of 64K different values, and
each segment could address 64K, so that produces 4GB unique logical
addresses, however realising that most of those these overlap in the
physical space.

But that also brings up, that only 64K can be addressed in a single
segment, as pointed to by a single segment register.

So there could be 3 answers depending on your frame of reference:
64K in a single segment,
1MB physically, or
4GB logically (understanding that there are overlaps due to the logical
-> physical mapping/translation).

--
Darran (aka Chewy509) borught to you by Google Groups!

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Initial values of File scoped and Block level variables
    ... the loaderallocates data segment ... If T is a function type, any initialization ... >that informs the loader to allocate 1 element of sizeofmemory. ...
    (comp.lang.c)
  • Re: Questions about Minix
    ... I think I got to that conclusion that .text shared the same memory chunk ... segment to processes from the beginning, and a data segment that did not ... True, but this would limit your stack size to some predetermined value, ... you still have plenty of heap left. ...
    (comp.os.minix)
  • Re: Software advice
    ... the processor to switch it back from protected mode to real mode. ... registers with a 'segment selector', which indexed into a table of segment ... different memory models and the distinction between near and far pointers ...
    (rec.arts.sf.fandom)
  • Re: How linear address translate to physical address in kernel space?
    ... the logical address must be pass segment translation. ... In paging process, CR3 register take one important role, it include page ... So in linux kernel, if it ... user task memory address space. ...
    (Linux-Kernel)
  • Re: [SLE] spyware
    ... What I'm saying is, very simple ... ... in the gun control there's a saying ... as far as I know as the segment should be handled by a true memory ...
    (SuSE)