Computer

Hallo Alex!

Thursday November 27, 1997 09:03, Alex Letaev wrote to Max Romanoff:

MR>> you think that 68000 is 32bit, then in this case the Z80 is 16bit
MR>> ;) What? There are several 16-bit registers...

AL> Register pairs are not registers.

In 16-bit processors 8086, 80186, 80286, all data registers
are register pairs: AX = AH + AL, BX = BH + BL, etc.
There are examples of even more “symmetrical” architectures. In addition, in the Z80
the IP, SP, IX and IY registers are 16-bit (according to the documentation).
In fact, the processor bit depth is determined by the ALU bit capacity,
from this point of view, the Z80 emulates several 16-bit instructions.
So this is one of the reasons for its popularity!.. ;)

George