Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!sdd.hp.com!caen!news.cs.indiana.edu!uceng!minerva!dmocsny From: dmocsny@minerva.che.uc.edu (Daniel Mocsny) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: 64-bit addressing Message-ID: <7515@uceng.UC.EDU> Date: 21 Feb 91 16:01:48 GMT References: <4270@lectroid.sw.stratus.com> < <1991Feb18.032849.16544@uicbert.eecs.uic.edu>> <9042@lkbreth.foretune.co.jp> Sender: news@uceng.UC.EDU Organization: University of Cincinnati, Cin'ti., OH Lines: 64 In article <9042@lkbreth.foretune.co.jp> trebor@lkbreth.foretune.co.jp (Robert Trebor Woodhead) writes: >I confidently predict that within 20 years (perhaps within 10!) 64 bits >will seem too small, and the big fight will be between the "96 bits is >enough" and the "you're nuts, we need at least 128 bits" camps, with a >lunatic fringe out there clamoring for 256 bit addressing. Very few people who say "enough" understand fully the venerable historic tradition from which they speak. Humans have two conflicting characteristics: we are at once (1) almost infinitely adaptive, and (2) almost infinitely greedy. Because reality is very hard on us, nobody gets to be as greedy as they would like to be. Our adaptive ability rescues us, by helping us believe that whatever we can get at time t is what we in fact "need". However, this human tendency to mistake the attainable for the desirable is nothing more than a psychological coping strategy. When something more becomes attainable (and this becomes sufficiently obvious), we eventually revise our notion of "need" upward to match it. However, overcoming our adaptation to old limits takes time. Almost every significant innovation meets widespread initial skepticism. Hard reality forces people to truncate their expectations, to the point where limitations actually DEFINE life for us. Relaxing a limitation can then seem like a threat instead of an opportunity. Suppose you can chain a lion to a stake. Eventually the lion will stop tugging at the chain, and accept the small circle of ground as his territory. Keep him there for enough years, and supposedly you can one day remove the chain, but he will no longer try to run away. He has grown used to life within a small circle, and no longer understands the desire to go anywhere else. In fact, he may have become an "expert" at living in that pathetic circumstance, and he may resent having to complicate his life with a whole bunch of new unknowns. This mentality has been pervasive among humans all through the technological era. For example: "What need have we of this 'telephone'? London has no shortage of messenger boys." 19th-century London business had adapted itself to a particular method of communication. The slow speed and inefficiency of it limited what that business could accomplish, but it also defined the framework in which business could take place. Therefore, if you wanted to succeed in business, you had to adapt your operations to match the limits of existing technology. To be ahead of your time was to make a fatal error. You either designed a business that could run well with only the services of messenger boys, or else you went broke. A system which defines success as ability to adapt to current limits is not a system which fosters visionary thinking. Almost invariably, the innovators are in some sense "outside" the system. The system as a whole does not embrace the innovation until it becomes apparent as the new limiting reality. Unlike previous generations, however, we do not have to wait decades between revolutions. One would think that the last ten years would suffice to quell forever anyone's tendency to pronounce "enough", but this does seem to happen. -- Dan Mocsny Internet: dmocsny@minerva.che.uc.edu Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com