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From: pkr@maddog.sgi.com (Phil Ronzone)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: 64/32 bit processors - impending disaster?
Message-ID: <4066@odin.SGI.COM>
Date: 14 Feb 90 00:54:30 GMT
References: <1990Feb12.182411.5982@ico.isc.com>
Sender: news@odin.SGI.COM
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc., Mountain View, CA
Lines: 20

In article <1990Feb12.182411.5982@ico.isc.com> rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn) writes:
>I've changed my mind a few times on this, but I think we're likely to see
>64-bit addresses (or, at the least, larger-than-32-bit addresses) a while
>before we see 64-bit integers.  Reasoning:  I see more machines pushing
>toward a gigabyte of storage, and if you're putting that much physical
>memory on a machine, surely you can create processes with virtual>real.
>But 64-bit integer operations, particularly multiply/divide, are still sort
>of expensive...too expensive to justify the limited return.  32 bits is a
>big number.


Key Computer, now owned by Amdahl, is working on a huge scalar UNIX machine.
It has 64-bit addresses and 64-bit ints. Just think of the fun they'll
have with 32-bit shorts.


------Me and my dyslexic keyboard----------------------------------------------
Phil Ronzone   Manager Secure UNIX           pkr@sgi.COM   {decwrl,sun}!sgi!pkr
Silicon Graphics, Inc.               "I never vote, it only encourages 'em ..."
-----In honor of Minas, no spell checker was run on this posting---------------