Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!rutgers!ames!pioneer!eugene
From: eugene@pioneer.arpa (Eugene Miya N.)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: 64 Vs 32
Message-ID: <782@ames.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 16-Mar-87 18:51:10 EST
Article-I.D.: ames.782
Posted: Mon Mar 16 18:51:10 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 17-Mar-87 04:30:36 EST
References: <3810013@nucsrl.UUCP> <985@rpics.RPI.EDU> <1310@ucbcad.berkeley.edu>
Sender: usenet@ames.UUCP
Reply-To: eugene@pioneer.UUCP (Eugene Miya N.)
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
Lines: 26

Wayne A. Christopher writes:

>What we need to ask is, who will need more than ~1G of memory?  I think
>the only applications that currently could use this much memory are
>scientific programs that run on Crays (which I think are addressible to
>the 64-bit word anyway).  I certainly haven't been running into the 1G
>limit too often lately.
>
>	Wayne

I think Wayne displays a bit of shortsightedness which has been common
through out the computer industry since its inception.  (Don't take this
personally, I don't write many 1G programs either.)  I can think of lots
of potential uses like Star War (Lucasfilm movies).  Graphics is very
compute intensive ("Welcome to the Teraflop Club" as J.C. would say at
Caltech).  I think the need grows to fill the void.  I also think this
example shows that introspection is not a good tool for design.

From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:

--eugene miya
  NASA Ames Research Center
  eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA
  "You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?"
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."
  {hplabs,hao,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix,menlo70}!ames!aurora!eugene