muta...@gmail.com  wrote:   
   > I used to program on the Commodore 64, which used   
   > the 6510 (basically 6502), and I recently realized that   
   > the way it used a pair of 8-bit values to access memory   
   > makes it fundamentally segmentation not much   
   > different to the 8086.   
   >   
   > (I think).   
   >   
   > Anything preventing using 4 8-bit values to access   
   > 4 GiB of memory instead of 64k?   
   >   
   > Would that be useful in any situation, given that I   
   > believe people still program 8-bit CPUs?   
      
   In short, you can.  Slightly longer: I already mentioned   
   STM8.  It is 8-bit processor similar in spirit to 6502.   
   But it allows 24-bit addresses, that is access to 16M   
   of memory.  They did not support 32-bit addresses, but   
   that is really question of need.  24-bit addresses are   
   used to break 64k barier, which is important for small   
   processors.  OTOH nobody makes such small processors   
   with more than 2M of memory, so 16M is really not   
   limiting.   
      
   Concerning segmentation: there is important difference,   
   in 6502 nas STM8 when you want you can use long addresses   
   giving you flat address space (without need for extra   
   code to nomalize pointers in huge model).  And when it   
   is enough you use shorter addresses.  Much easier for   
   programmer or compiler than 8086 segmentation.   
      
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