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Re:GentleOS – Classic operating system with a lovely retro GUI by gunapologist99 on Tuesday June 09, 2026 @11:49AM (#48462688)
Yes, the CPU is full 32-bits, but the bus in a 386 SX is only 16 bit. Those PS/1's are such a cool piece of computing history!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I386#80386SX

Re:GentleOS – Classic operating system with a lovely retro GUI by wtallis on Tuesday June 09, 2026 @12:20PM (#48463141)
The data bus was only 16 bits wide, but that doesn't really have much impact on OS compatibility; it just means that transferring a 32-bit value to or from memory takes two bus clock cycles instead of one. The address bus is only 24 bits wide, but that only affects physical memory address space; it still uses 32-bit pointers and a 32-bit virtual address space.