Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!cornell!rochester!bbn!uwmcsd1!ig!agate!ucbvax!donahn
From: donahn@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU (Don Ahn)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: More than 32 bits needed where?
Summary: Specialized applications
Message-ID: <22931@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 10 Feb 88 02:39:18 GMT
References: <4340@ames.arpa> <28200094@ccvaxa>
Organization: University of California at Berkeley
Lines: 36

In article <28200094@ccvaxa>, aglew@ccvaxa.UUCP writes:
> 
> >It kind of makes me wonder about many of the whizzy new processors; why
> >would anyone go to all the trouble to design and implement a new machine
> >with only a 32-bit bus?  If the new machines are as fast as reputed, then
> >probably Lisp users will want to run larger tasks than they can address.
> >What shall I do when my Sun-4 (or whatever) has 4 gigabytes of swapping
> >space and it's not enough?
> >
> >						-- Jay Freeman
> 
> Heartily second this emotion. Maybe the implementation should only have 

If I may put in my two cents worth,  I would think the majority of 
applications out there today on PC (IBM,Apple) systems and Unix
systems  (especially BUSINESS) applications would do quite fine in
a 4 gigabyte address space.  There are some applications that
could use a 64 bit address space (Lisp, Image Processing, Digitization),
but there are the exceptions to the rule.  Most people are quite
happy to run the same, or similar, applications they have been
running so far as long as they can run them faster.  Lets face it,
faster sells much better that addressing space to the business world
and to the general public.  Until 64-bit dBase XXI come out there
will be relatively little (dollar) demand for 64-bit addressing
machines.  I know people that would be perfectly happy with a
100 Mhz 8088 PC with 640k of 10ns Ram and a 5ms 10 Meg disk running
PC-DOS.  To may said system would be the epitamy of computer "advancement".
Sickening but true.



-- 
Don Ahn
UC/Berkeley Dept. of Zoology
1576 LSB			USENET: ...!ucbvax!donahn
(415) 643-6299			ARPA:   donahn@ucbvax.berkeley.edu