void * and & and C lameness

I don't know who specified it, but that you can't use & on pointers is a major lameness in C. Especially with addresses you want to mask off bits, and you now always have to cast to an integer and then back again. The problem is though, which integer ? Traditionally on UNIX one used int, but that f.e. never worked well on the Atari ST f.e., where int was defined on some compilers to be 16 bit. With the advent of 64 bit computing, it remains to be seen if all compilers will promote long to 64 bit, so logically one should be using unsigned long long, but that is just horrible :) One reason, why you may not be able to use & on pointers, might be because you couldn't use AND on address registers on some CPUs like the 680000. but then C was developed for the PDP-11 and I don't know that machine at all. It is also none none none convenient, that you can't say (void *) p + 12. I suspect some PASCALers were on the committee when this was discussed. :) [Playing right now: Gasoline from the album "Audioslave" by Audioslave]