Xref: utzoo comp.lang.c:19206 comp.misc:6272 Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!bellcore!texbell!sugar!ficc!peter From: peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) Newsgroups: comp.lang.c,comp.misc Subject: (How many bits) Re: Day of week routine Message-ID: <4413@ficc.uu.net> Date: 6 Jun 89 11:41:50 GMT References: <10327@socslgw.csl.sony.JUNET> Followup-To: comp.misc Organization: Xenix Support Lines: 23 Follow up to comp.misc. The subject is how many bits we'll be using in 50 years. Many people are holding out for 32, for some reason. In article <10327@socslgw.csl.sony.JUNET>, diamond@csl.sony.co.jp (Norman Diamond) writes: > But a 20-year-old operating system is another story. Everyone wants > to run a 20-year-old operating system with their 3-year-old workstation, Ah, but that 20 year old operating system was running on 16 bit machines at the time. It's now running almost exclusively on 32-bit ones. To say that it'll be running on 32-bit machines in 20 years, let alone 50, is a symptom of a failure of the imagination. And it's not the same system it was 20 years ago. I suspect that in 20 years, and likely 10, maybe even 5, it'll be most often seen running under Mach (or the moral equivalent). -- Peter da Silva, Xenix Support, Ferranti International Controls Corporation. Business: uunet.uu.net!ficc!peter, peter@ficc.uu.net, +1 713 274 5180. Personal: ...!texbell!sugar!peter, peter@sugar.hackercorp.com.