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From: bzs@bu-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c,comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Time for 64-bit longs?
Message-ID: <4192@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Date: Fri, 13-Feb-87 19:50:20 EST
Article-I.D.: bu-cs.4192
Posted: Fri Feb 13 19:50:20 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 14-Feb-87 19:08:43 EST
Organization: Boston U. Comp. Sci.
Lines: 29
Xref: utgpu comp.lang.c:1040 comp.unix.wizards:966


>Even assuming you meant 128-bit address,just what do you propose doing with
>that pointer?  Going to assign every quark in the universe its own address?
>
>--j.a.tainter

Being as this type of thing comes up so often consider a machine who's
HARDWARE supports the following virtual address space:

(assume BITSnn is a derived nn-bit scalar type to avoid confusion)

	struct pointer {
		BITS32	NodeAddress;		/* address on network */
		struct device {
			BITS16	MajorDevice;	/* type of device */
			BITS16	MinorDevice;	/* which of that type */
		}
		BITS64	Offset;			/* memory, seekptr etc */
	};

and assume a hardware instruction set that really could utilize such
pointers to address any disk, tape, memory etc on a large network.

Nahh, 128-bits isn't enough cuz 32-bits isn't enough for the segmented
network space...

Is that really too wild? I don't think so.

	-Barry Shein, Boston University