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16 bit compilers like Turbo C++ or Borland C++ have different types of pointer variables depending on the memory model of the compilation/linking. x86 processor points a memory location by a combination of segment registers and offset registers. Both registers are 16 bits wide. Now effective address is calculated by

Effective Address = (Segment Reg. << 4) + (Offset Reg.)

Near pointer: Near pointer is 16 bits wide and holds only offset address. This can point upto 64kb or 0xFFFF offset in a given segment.

int i = 0;
int * i_pointer = &i;

Far pointer: Far pointers are 32 bits wide and hold both 16bit segment and 16bit offset addresses. Thus a far pointer can point to any segment and to any offset inside that segment. MK_FP is a compiler macro which take segment and offset values and constructs a far pointer.

int far * i_pointer = (int far * )MK_FP(0xA000, 0);
i_pointer can have offset values from 0 to 0xFFFF.
Thus, it can access address inside range 0xA0000 to 0xAFFFF

Huge pointer: Huge pointers are also far pointers i.e. 32 bit pointers. The difference is that compiler rounds off the offset of a far pointer to zero when the offset reaches 0xFFFF but for a huge pointer, it increments the segment value on reaching 0xFFFF. Thus huge pointers can be increased or decreased uniformly between any segments and can have any value from 0 to 1MB.

char huge * i_pointer = (char huge * )MK_FP(0xA000, 0xFFFF);
In case of far pointers, increment of i_pointer will round it off to 0xA0000. But for huge pointers, the value will point to the next segment i.e. 0xAFFFF + 1 = 0xB0000.

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