Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!ists!yunexus!davecb
From: davecb@yunexus.YorkU.CA (David Collier-Brown)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Extremely Fast Filesystems
Message-ID: <13587@yunexus.YorkU.CA>
Date: 7 Aug 90 17:03:14 GMT
References: <5539@darkstar.ucsc.edu> <13285@yunexus.YorkU.CA> <30728@super.ORG> <13667@cbmvax.commodore.com> <40644@mips.mips.COM>
Organization: York U. Computing Services
Lines: 31

mash@mips.COM (John Mashey) writes:
|So, here's a thought to stimulate discussion:
|	What applications (outside the scientific / MCAD ones that
|	can obviously consume the space) would benefit from 64-bit
|	machines?

|	Why?  (for example, here are some low-level reasons why a
|		a particular one might benefit):

|		a) Need more physical memory, and thus more virtual address
|		to deal with it conveniently.
|		b) Need more virtual memory, to address a lot of data at once,
|		and so probably need more phyiscal memory also.
|		c) Need more virtual memory, sometimes sparsely addressed,
|		to use algorithms and design approaches to make the software
|		reasoanble, but possibly with less physical memory than b).

  Well, transaction processing machines with many large (effectively sparse
(:-)) databases to manipulate might well require fileservers with large
spares address spaces, even if the machines doing the computing didn't 
need all of the data at once.
  Note that TP, like real-time, is an environment where the implausible is
done regularly, and the inelegant daily (:-)), all in the name of
performance. 

--dave (rant[tm] coming: get your K key ready) c-b
-- 
David Collier-Brown,  | davecb@Nexus.YorkU.CA, ...!yunexus!davecb or
72 Abitibi Ave.,      | {toronto area...}lethe!dave 
Willowdale, Ontario,  | "And the next 8 man-months came up like
CANADA. 416-223-8968  |   thunder across the bay" --david kipling