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640K is enough for anyone.
Jul. 8th, 2009 04:49 pmWe were recently chatting with collegues over a cup of tea.
Someone said: X86 ISA is a bit cluttered because it started as a 16 bit redesign of 8080, then there was a 32 bit extension and later 64 bit instructions added, and 128 bit extension will come too. I've argued: who would need to address 64 billion gigabytes of memory in a single device ever?
So my point is that 64 bit address space is enough for anyone (c)
The answer was that according to British scientists :) 1 extra bit for addressing is needed each year. So with current addresable needs of 48 bits, we'll need 128 bits in 80 years. That might even fit within our life time. But we'll need to live a bit more then 100 years then.
But wait, isn't living 100 years enough for anyone?
Someone said: X86 ISA is a bit cluttered because it started as a 16 bit redesign of 8080, then there was a 32 bit extension and later 64 bit instructions added, and 128 bit extension will come too. I've argued: who would need to address 64 billion gigabytes of memory in a single device ever?
So my point is that 64 bit address space is enough for anyone (c)
The answer was that according to British scientists :) 1 extra bit for addressing is needed each year. So with current addresable needs of 48 bits, we'll need 128 bits in 80 years. That might even fit within our life time. But we'll need to live a bit more then 100 years then.
But wait, isn't living 100 years enough for anyone?
