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

Jerry Feldman gaf at blu.org
Sat Feb 17 12:45:32 EST 2007


On Sat, 17 Feb 2007 12:10:59 -0500
"Ben Scott" <dragonhawk at gmail.com> wrote:

>   That's not really true.  16-bit machines are *very* limited.  There
> is not a whole lot you can do in 64 kilobytes of RAM (all you can
> directly address with a 16-bit address word).  Anything running on an
> 8086 (i.e., MS-DOS and all its software) has to play all sorts of
> games just to address the full megabyte the IBM-PC architecture allows
> for in Real Mode.  
There is always the next plateau. The early pcs (generic), Apple II,
Commodore 64, Trash 80, and the first IBM PCs were all 8-bit (although
the PC had an 8-bit version of a 16-bit chip). Then we got the 16-bit
chips (such as the Atari ST, Commodore Amiga) and the PC clones that
were truly 16 bit, and the Mac. There was a relatively big transition
from 16-bits to 32-bits. And, still there remained a lot of 16-bit
Windows code. But, back then, home computers were not so ubiquitous as
they are today, and the transition can be somewhat painful. I remember
that we had a number of partners on the Alpha that refused to spend the
effort to port their applications to 64-bit, and we came up with a way
they could build a 32-bit application without having to supply a full
set of 32-bit libraries. In the x86-64 bit world, you have a chip that
fully supports the x86 32-bit environment and instruction set. You can
run a 32-bit OS and it does not any better. You can have a 64-bit OS,
and with some support, 32-bit applications built on 32-bit systems will
run natively. But, you need 32-bit and 64-bit libraries. 
-- 
Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org>
Boston Linux and Unix user group
http://www.blu.org PGP key id:C5061EA9
PGP Key fingerprint:053C 73EC 3AC1 5C44 3E14 9245 FB00 3ED5 C506 1EA9
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