From: antispam@fricas.org

bart  wrote:
> And yet, integer widths have been roughly capped at double a machine
> word size for decades - until 64 bits came along and then few even
> bothered with double-width.
>
> Nobody thought how easy it would be to just have an integer of whatever
> size you like - you just generate whatever code is necessary to make it
> happen. We could have had BitInts on 32- and even 16-bit machines if
> only somebody had thought of it!

PL/I had things like 'fixed binary(23)' (that is ability to
specify bit size) around 1965, but that stopped at machine
word length.  Pascal had range types, but similarly stopped
at at integer size.  GNU Pascal allowed specifiying size in
bits and going to twice machine word (that was limitation
imposed by gcc backend).

And yes, such types could be added much earlier and it
is a shame that they are added only now.

This IMHO was classic example of inertia: people needing
larger integers were used to fact that mainstream lower
level languages provided no support, so they used their
own special purpose code.  Since apparently programs were
written compiler writers assumed that there is no need for
bigger integer types.  As long as no compiler provided
support for bigger integers, no was loosing marked due to
lack of such feature.  Fortunately, LLVM added them and
after that competitive pressure led to gcc adding such
types.

Part of reason may be that in nineties usage of other
(than C) lower level languages went down.  C was
traditionally quite minimal and did not want new to
introduce new features.

--
                              Waldek Hebisch

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