8-bits is What?

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The funny (or tragic?) thing about the Jaguar's 68k is that it was only there to read controller inputs. But developers who were unwilling or unable to get the most out of Tom and Jerry (the 32-bit chips) over-relied on the one familiar component they saw in the chaotic mess that was the system's architecture.

The SNES CPU breaks down 16 bit operations into two 8 bit ones. The advantage is that it doesn't have to fetch two instructions from memory... But the PC Engine's very similar CPU runs so much faster that it does 16 bit operations quicker anyway.

Back in the magazine days the PC-Engine (Turbographics 16) was called an 8 bit system by all the magazines (at least in my country). In fact, they frequently went on about how this little 8bit system had such good graphics (sometimes they called it a hybrid system, but never a flat out 16bit one).

8-BIT CPU's weren't the first generation of CPU's. You're forgetting the very first CPU, the Intel 4004, which was 4-BIT.

Great video. What got me interested in how computers work was when I was 14 and my friend told me my Dreamcast wasn't 128bit but actually 32bit. My mind was blown and I refused to believe it. Sure enough he was right and I saw the world through clearer eyes ever since.

I'm no stranger to nerding out on computers but this is the first video that finally made me understand what the hell the bits are really about! Wonderful video, cheers, mate!

"This could take a while" Missed the chance to say "this could take a bit" 😂

IBM PC with 20-bit address bus, 16-bit data registers and 8-bit data bus: 16-bit computer Amiga with 24-bit address bus, 32-bit data registers and 16-bit data bus: 16-bit computer Either the IBM PC was an 8-bit computer or the Amiga was a 32-bit computer. It can't be both.

Basically, things started to get real complicated real fast as technology developed. In addition to data and address buses, you also have the internal processing structure: different registers holding different data sizes, and different logic/execution units and pipelines able to handle those and perform operations on them. So, you had processors doing things like 32-bit signed integer operations in one part, 64-bit floating point operations in another, SIMD operations on multiple pieces of 16-bit data, and so forth.

Seriously, your videos are some of the best tech videos I've ever seen. Every time your channel comes out with a new video, I have no choice but to at least see part of it. Keep up the good work!

Part of the reason SNK marketed the NEO-GEO as 24-bit is that in addition to the Motorola 68K it's also packing a Zilog Z80 as a coprocessor... Which is itself crazy to think about if you grew up in the era of 8-bit microcomputers. The reason for the 24-bit wide data bus and it's real claim to being a 24-bit console however is SNK's custom graphics chip.

I always enjoy the informative nature of your videos pal. I also enjoy a fellow Englishman's take on retro gaming as well. Thanks for the awesome content Sharopolis!

Great explanation, thank you. All I knew growing up was 16 bit is double the bits, so that means it's good

Raid shadow legends only on its 4th year but it feels like 8 years of ads

Dreamcast and PS2 were the end of the "bit wars," as Dreamcast touted 128 bits, PS had to call theirs 128 because Sega did so with the DC. Though, once the DC failed, everyone seemed to forget about the bit-ness of systems, and for good reason. Bits was often associated with graphics and how good the games looked and by the time the PS2 and Xbox came around, the games looked so good, that graphics weren't leaving much of an impression on people as they once were in the 90s.

20:54 About the Neo-Geo being 24 bit: The 68000 has a 24 bit address space... And the MVS Also had an 8 bit Zilog Z80, along side the "16-bit" 68000. This is the same setup that the Sega Genesis had! The AES was basically a more powerful Sega Genesis, since the Genesis itself was just copying arcade hardware. The AES is for all intents and purposes the internals of an arcade cabinet crammed inside a console and its cartridges, which is why it resembles the Genesis. The Genesis was trying to bring the arcade into the home, and so was the AES. They both have the same design philosophy. Even funnier, is that the marketing at the time derived the 24 bit from combining the bits of the two CPUs... Which is what the Atari Jaguar got in hot water over, just some years later! The point of all this is that, even if the bits do actually matter to processing power and memory limits, how these systems were marketed was almost completely divorced from the actual specs of the machines.

The main differences between the various generations of game consoles really comes down the audio and video chips and what their capabilities are. The 8 bit systems were largely confined to 16 color (with rules) graphics and primitive sound chips limited to a few 8 bit "voices" The 16 bit machines were capable of displaying between 64 and hundreds of colors, often with rules. The 32 bit systems were capable of displaying hundreds of colors without rules and with primitive 3d capabilities.

Aw, you’re back! Fantastic! You’ve quickly turned into my favourite channel, um, person, mate. Brilliant how you explain all this stuff to us non-techies and make sense of it all.

I feel at least twice as educated (and confused) than before I fired up this video 🤣 Fantastic production! Thanks for putting in the research and time to whip up this masterpiece!