Comment by tialaramex

> that all pointers "are" just register-sized integer addresses

And crucially until DR#260 https://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg14/www/docs/dr_260.htm this was a reasonable guess as to what the pointers are. Probably not a wise guess because it's not how your C compiler worked even then, but a reasonable guess if you didn't think too hard about this.

One way I like to think about this is that all C's types are just the machine integers wearing crap Halloween costumes. Groucho glasses for bool, maybe a Lincoln hat for char, float and double can be bright orange make-up and a long tie. But the pointers are different, because unlike the other types those have provenance.

5 == 5, 'Z' == 'Z', true == true, 1.5f == 1.5f, but whether two pointers are equivalent does not depend solely on their bit pattern in C.