Is a 32 bit integer on a 16 bit machine possible?

Question

Just wondering if it possible. If yes, are there other ways besides compiler emulation layer?

Answer 1

It's processor-dependent. Some processors have special instructions to manipulate register pairs (e.g. the 8-bit AVR instruction set has instructions for 16-bit register pairs). On processors without such native support, the compiler usually emits instructions that work with pairs of registers at a time (this is what is usually done to support 64-bit numbers on 32-bit processors, for example).