Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen
From: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: ATTACK OF KILLER MICROS
Message-ID: <1259@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>
Date: 19 Oct 89 12:39:04 GMT
References: <35825@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> <1081@m3.mfci.UUCP> <35979@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV>
Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.UUCP (bill davidsen)
Organization: GE Corp R&D Center
Lines: 22

In article <35979@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV>, brooks@vette.llnl.gov (Eugene Brooks) writes:
|                                     The MAJOR problem with current micros
|  in a scalable shared memory environment is their 32 bit addressing.
|  Unfortunately, no 4 processor system will ever need more than 32 bit
|  addresses, so we will have to BEG the micro vendors to put in bigger
|  pointer support..

  The Intel 80386 has 32 bit segments, but its still a segmented system,
and the virtual address space is (I believe) 40 bits. The *physical*
space is 32 bits, though. The 586 has been described in the press as a
64 bit machine. Seems about right, the problem which people are seeing
right now is that file size is getting over 32 bits, and that makes all
the database stuff seriously ugly, complex, and subject to programming
error.

  I think you can assume that no begging will be needed, but if you let
the vendors think that you need it the price will rise ;-)
-- 
bill davidsen	(davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen)
"The world is filled with fools. They blindly follow their so-called
'reason' in the face of the church and common sense. Any fool can see
that the world is flat!" - anon