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From: weaver@weitek.WEITEK.COM
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: 64 bits
Message-ID: <25912@weitek.WEITEK.COM>
Date: 9 Aug 90 23:38:16 GMT
References: <5539@darkstar.ucsc.edu> <13285@yunexus.YorkU.CA> <30728@super.ORG> <13667@cbmvax.commodore.com> <40644@mips.mips.COM> <1990Aug8.042631.7093@nlm.nih.gov> <1990Aug8.215735.4197@zoo.toronto.edu>
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Reply-To: weaver@weitek.UUCP (Michael Weaver)
Organization: WEITEK Corp. Sunnyvale Ca.
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In article <1990Aug8.215735.4197@zoo.toronto.edu> henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:
>
>You've just answered your own question.  They'll use 64 bits for the same
>thing they use 32 bits for:  address arithmetic.  Making integers and
>pointers the same size will be primarily a concession to badly-written
>programs (which *know* the two are the same size) and marketing (which

Don't forget array indices, which should be about the same size 
as pointers to support large arrays of small objects. If you are
writing programs with large arrays, you won't want to be limited 
to a size much less than the memory available.