[OT] End-user uses for x86-64 (was: Why are still not at 64 bits)

[Jason Stephenson]

If end users are defined as home users and office users, then 64 bits 
will never matter to them, just like 32 bits doesn't matter to them 
today. For the majority of people, its just a yard stick, like 4 
cylinder vs. 6 cylinder vs. 8. Most have some notion of what it means, 
that more is generally "better," but they don't often base their buying 
decision on that one metric.

They'll buy the computer that's available today that the salesman and 
the demo software or the review online or in the magazine says that they 
can do the work that they want to do on it. They don't particularly need 
to know or care that the CPU has a 64 bit address space. As long as it 
mostly works and does what they want to do in a "reasonable" amount of 
time, they are happy.

End users are buying 64-bit machines today, they're getting them with 
64-bit or 32-bit operating systems, and for the most part, it doesn't 
really matter to them. Very few of them would notice the difference in 
performance in the work that they are doing.

Sixty-four bitness will never matter to end users, but it will become 
ubiquitous over time, and sooner or later nearly everyone will have 
computers and devices with 64 bit CPUs and operating systems and the 
vast majority of people won't really notice.

Yes, there are uses for 64 bit address space, just as a 128 bit address 
space would enable use to tackle unthinkable problems. Yes, the 
performance issues are there, but if it really matter to John and Jane 
Computeruser, 64 bit computers would have become common place in the 
market before now and DEC would have bought Compaq.

As a friend of mine said in 1992, "I wish they'd stop wasting time with 
semiconductors and get on to doing computations with light."

Cheers,
Jason