Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!cica!iuvax!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!aglew From: aglew@crhc.uiuc.edu (Andy Glew) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: >32 bits Message-ID: Date: 23 Oct 90 21:12:24 GMT Sender: news@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (News) Organization: Center for Reliable and High-Performance Computing University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign Lines: 28 Occasionally this group discusses whether there is a need for computers with >32 bits of address space. I remember a few years back when people actually argued about this, although now it pretty much is the consensus that >32 bit, byte addressible, linear address, machines not only are needed, but they are also just around the corner[*]. Just to put a few more nails in the coffin, here is an excerpt from a misc.jobs.offered posting: >We are a publisher company , publishing 120 telefon catalogs for northern >german towns... > >The main objekt of development is software to maintain all data for telefon >catalogs includinding graphics, and programs to compute this data ready for >foto composing. So we are producing this catalogs fully electronically. >At the moment this projekt is the largest UNIX / ORACLE V 6 projekt in >europe.(600 tables;12 Gigabyte raw data;up to 150 transactions per minute). People already have databases that exceed 32 bits worth of address if memory mapped. It isn't even the largest banks anymore. Regional companies even, not multinationals. [*] byte addressible and linear address space may be somewhat debatable, but I don't want to get into that... -- Andy Glew, a-glew@uiuc.edu [get ph nameserver from uxc.cso.uiuc.edu:net/qi]