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From: firth@sei.cmu.edu.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: 64 Vs 32
Message-ID: <1109@aw.sei.cmu.edu>
Date: Thu, 23-Apr-87 08:59:52 EST
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Posted: Thu Apr 23 08:59:52 1987
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In article <751@instable.UUCP> amos%nsta@nsc.com (Amos Shapir) writes:
>To increase  flexibility, processors that  can access 64  bits of
>addressing will  probably do it  the old fashioned way:  by using
>one word (32  bits) as a base address, and  another as an offset.
>There's no point  in dragging all 64  bits everywhere, especially
>since  processing   is  usually   localized  among   clusters  of
>addresses.

Sigh!  I remember people saying exactly the same thing 15 years ago
when we were moving from 16-bit to 32-bit machines.  To repeat the
same old arguments

(a) You mean I can't declare

	integer array huge[0:1048575] ?

(b) How do I pass a by-reference parameter?  Aren't I going to have
    to transmit 64 bits somehow, and isn't that easier as one thing
    than as two things?

(c) How do I pass an array slice by reference.  I might be able to
    live with having all arrays start at a segment boundary, but
    what about a call

	sort(a[low:pivot])

    which surely MUST pass a 64-bit address as the base of the slice.
    And since ANY actual array might be a slice, EVERY formal array
    parameter must be represented this way.

(d) How do I do

	integer a(100),b
	equivalence a(10),b

    and then access b?

And so on...