Segment:Offset addressing scheme

[Gulshan Singh]

What I don't understand about this scheme is first of all why they would use it. If there are overlaps and more numbers in this scheme why not use the absolute address of everything. Second of all, what is the "segment" and the "offset"? Why are they called that and what is there significance?

 

[Gulshan Singh]

No one knows :O. Or am I in the wrong section...

 

[Tommy Boy]

This probably should be moved to the programming section....

 

[Gabdo]

The segment address inside the descriptor table entry has a length of 24 bits so The 386 processor also uses 32 bit values for the address offset. ...
segment arithmetic because Windows implements a software virtual memory scheme,
...