Re: "Can anyone offer a reason for using this segmented crap "
Raad Tanenbaum's book on computer architecture, particularly the part about the design of the virtual memory system for Multics, and you find no reason to think that there is anything wrong with their combination of segmentation and paging.
Then read about the Intel X86 design and figure out that their trick for addressing 16-bit address registers together with 160-bit segment selectors to produce 20-bit adresses was easy for Intel, but hard for developers.... Intel & Microsoft: a marriage made in hell.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
