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From: dswartz@bigbootay.sw.stratus.com
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: 64-bit addressing
Message-ID: <4270@lectroid.sw.stratus.com>
Date: 17 Feb 91 21:09:17 GMT
Sender: usenet@lectroid.sw.stratus.com
Reply-To: dswartz@bigbootay.sw.stratus.com ()
Organization: Stratus Computer, Software Engineering.
Lines: 19

Not that I'm arguing with all of the erudite claims I've heard in this
newsgroup arguing about how bad a 64 bit virtual address space is because
it is [too inefficient | unnecessary | too expensive | ...].  I'm sure
with the current state of technology, they probably understand the issues
better than I.  I just can't help but remember back in the good old days
when I was programming a 16-bit PDP/11 with 128KB main memory and 16MB
of hard disk, hearing similar lamentations about how a 32-bit machine
would be a huge lose, just think of all the extra memory you will use once
the pointers and integers all double in size!  I now have a home PC with
64 times the main memory and 16 times the disk storage (and a processor
which is probably 10 times faster at 1/10 the cost!)  All of this happened
within 10 years.  Although I would like to have 4GB of main memory in a
desktop box, my main interest in the large address space is being able to
map ANYTHING of interest into memory.  It might be a fairly small database
mapped readonly over a pair of tin cans connected by string, but hey...

--

Dan S.