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From: mash@mips.COM (John Mashey)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Be Prepared...
Keywords: Lots Of Memory
Message-ID: <46049@mips.mips.COM>
Date: 21 Feb 91 02:17:06 GMT
References: <1991Feb13.160718.25759@visix.com> <3197@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>
Sender: news@mips.COM
Reply-To: mash@mips.COM (John Mashey)
Organization: MIPS Computer Systems, Inc.
Lines: 47

In article <3197@crdos1.crd.ge.COM> davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen) writes:
>In article <1991Feb13.160718.25759@visix.com> jeff@nsx (Jeff Barr) writes:
>| Voracious_users_of_memory and assumers_that_sizeof(char *)==sizeof(int):
>| Note that people who are building new processor chips (e.g.
>| the MIPS R4000) say that by 1993 typical high-end micro-based systems
>| are going to have more than 4 gigabytes of address space, and in many
>| cases this much real memory.  
>  I guess if you define high end micros to mean those with 4GB of
>memory, then this will be true. There will always be problems which can
>use this much memory, but somehow I can't see why there would be that
>much memory on a typical system. As long as cost and failure rate are

Note: I don't think anybody has claimed that 4GB of memory will be
"typical" real soon  [obviously, if there is a "typical" number
it is 640KB :-)].  We do claim that:
	a) More than one company that builds micro-based servers will obviously
	offer 4GB of real memory within just a few years.
	b) People often buy 50%-max memory sizes, and a few do buy maxed
	machines, or more likely, upgrade there.
	c) There are important applications that care about this.
	They are not necessarily "typical" applications, just ones
	that happen to be very important to reasonable numbers of people,
	not leading-edge crazies.

Elsewhere, there was a question about desktop applications that might
want this.  I thought I posted a long discussion on this, but
let me resummarize:
	1) Databases
	2) Video
	3) Image
	4) CAD
	5) G.I.S.
	6) Technical number-crunch
Of these, workstations are relevant to every one for software development,
and at least for 2-5 for end-user usage. 

Again, this discussion is NOT claiming that your word processor, spreadsheet,
and mail programs suddenly will croak if they don't go 64-bits,
or that all 32-bit machines are suddenly obsolete, but that convenient
more-than-32-bit addressing will be an enabler for certain classes
of applications that are already important, and likely to be more
widespread if they can be made cheap.
-- 
-john mashey	DISCLAIMER: <generic disclaimer, I speak for me only, etc>
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