>> Nonsense. ARMv4 has half-word operations and if you use -march=armv4 the 
>> compiler will use them.
>>
>> I think you must be confusing the default user-space build options which 
>> are essentially ARMv3.
>
> Aha! Thanks.

You're not alone.  I know other programmer(s) who were suffered
from '2 sequential byte r/w instead of one single half-word r/w' hassle to build
conventional mmaped I/O userland applications.   The point is there are number
of gcc toolchains on this planet and none of them idential each other.  So,
beware and make sure to have correct command line options to use.

Toru Nishimura/ALKYL Technology