egghead thought the day

32-bit machines provide for 4 GB of directly addressable memory. 64-bit machines increase that to 17,179,869,184 GB. Why do we care and when will it matter?

Puppy Breath wrote:

32-bit machines provide for 4 GB of directly addressable memory. 64-bit machines increase that to 17,179,869,184 GB. Why do we care and when will it matter?

4GB is not great when you're processing video, which quickly gobbles up RAM. It matters already - manufacturers are trying to win control of the living room.
Software that requires loading of complex models, e.g. speech recognition is also a voracious RAM user. Throw all of these things together and you get games, and other other highly interactive contextual software.

The i86 32-bit architecture isn't limited to 4GB. This limitation is only a design choice in the current generation of Windows. With segmented (as opposed to flat) addressing mode (akin to the old 8086 style), it can address up to 64TB (65,536GB) virtual memory. All it would require would be a recompile with the appropriate parameters, and a couple of modifications in the kernel's initialization module. -- Pierre Szwarc Paris, France PGP key ID 0x75B5779B ------------------------------------------------ Multitasking: Reading in the bathroom ! ------------------------------------------------
"Puppy Breath" a écrit dans le message de news: F364099F-433A-410C-8591-B36027A41D59@microsoft.com... | 32-bit machines provide for 4 GB of directly addressable memory. 64-bit | machines increase that to 17,179,869,184 GB. Why do we care and when will it | matter? |

If you're a serious power user, and hungry for RAM, this will be very very useful :o) Especially in server environments - how do you think organisations like Xerox and eBay run? :o)
-- Zack Whittaker » ZackNET Enterprises: www.zacknet.co.uk » MSBlog on ResDev: www.msblog.org » Vista Knowledge Base: www.vistabase.co.uk » This mailing is provided "as is" with no warranties, and confers no rights. All opinions expressed are those of myself unless stated so, and not of my employer, best friend, Ghandi, my mother or my cat. Glad we cleared that up!
--: Original message follows :-- "Pierre Szwarc" wrote in message

The i86 32-bit architecture isn't limited to 4GB. This limitation is only a design choice in the current generation of Windows. With segmented (as opposed to flat) addressing mode (akin to the old 8086 style), it can address up to 64TB (65,536GB) virtual memory. All it would require would be a recompile with the appropriate parameters, and a couple of modifications in the kernel's initialization module. -- Pierre Szwarc Paris, France PGP key ID 0x75B5779B ------------------------------------------------ Multitasking: Reading in the bathroom ! ------------------------------------------------
"Puppy Breath" a écrit dans le message de news: F364099F-433A-410C-8591-B36027A41D59@microsoft.com... | 32-bit machines provide for 4 GB of directly addressable memory. 64-bit | machines increase that to 17,179,869,184 GB. Why do we care and when will it | matter? |

bill gates claimed that 640k ram is more than enough for any application ever developed.
That was one if his biggest goof ups... talk about visionaries... lol
-- "What concerns me is not the way things are, but rather the way people think things are." - Epictetus 55-135
"Puppy Breath" wrote in message

32-bit machines provide for 4 GB of directly addressable memory. 64-bit machines increase that to 17,179,869,184 GB. Why do we care and when will it matter?

You may not need a zillion terabytes, but it is how much you get with 64-bit architecture, it is just math. 4gb is definitely not enough, and 64-bit is the next logical progression.
"Puppy Breath" wrote in message

32-bit machines provide for 4 GB of directly addressable memory. 64-bit machines increase that to 17,179,869,184 GB. Why do we care and when will it matter?

That his often quoted and also denied by Bill Gates. No one is able to cite a specific source for that quote from Bill Gates so it is most likely a myth.
-- Jupiter Jones [MVP] http://www3.telus.net/dandemar http://www.dts-l.org
"John Jay Smith" <-> wrote in message

bill gates claimed that 640k ram is more than enough for any application ever developed.
That was one if his biggest goof ups... talk about visionaries... lol
-- "What concerns me is not the way things are, but rather the way people think things are." - Epictetus 55-135

LOL he made a statement only recently saying that "I never said such a thing".... but we all saw the video Bill ;o)
-- Zack Whittaker » ZackNET Enterprises: www.zacknet.co.uk » MSBlog on ResDev: www.msblog.org » Vista Knowledge Base: www.vistabase.co.uk » This mailing is provided "as is" with no warranties, and confers no rights. All opinions expressed are those of myself unless stated so, and not of my employer, best friend, Ghandi, my mother or my cat. Glad we cleared that up!
--: Original message follows :-- "John Jay Smith" <-> wrote in message

bill gates claimed that 640k ram is more than enough for any application ever developed.
That was one if his biggest goof ups... talk about visionaries... lol
-- "What concerns me is not the way things are, but rather the way people think things are." - Epictetus 55-135
"Puppy Breath" wrote in message 32-bit machines provide for 4 GB of directly addressable memory. 64-bit machines increase that to 17,179,869,184 GB. Why do we care and when will it matter?

Zack Whittaker wrote:

LOL he made a statement only recently saying that "I never said such a thing".... but we all saw the video Bill ;o)

From 1981? When not much of anything was committed to video?
I guess we'll leave it to you to dig up the source since no one else has managed to in 25 years.

Hey Fat Bastard, I'm star struck having a celebrity in our midst! Play us a tune on yer bagpipes.
What about this whole "virtual layer" between the actual file/folder structure and the ability to find things quickly using Search boxes and such in Vista. Don't you think that all that stuff must involve a lot of indexes, and wouldn't it make sense to try to keep those in RAM for performance reasons? Do you think there might be a basic "RAM is dirt cheap and plentiful" philosophy driving that?
"Fat Bastard" wrote in message

You may not need a zillion terabytes, but it is how much you get with 64-bit architecture, it is just math. 4gb is definitely not enough, and 64-bit is the next logical progression.
"Puppy Breath" wrote in message 32-bit machines provide for 4 GB of directly addressable memory. 64-bit machines increase that to 17,179,869,184 GB. Why do we care and when will it matter?

I would imagine why he would deny it...LOL
but even if he did say it, I can forgive him :-)
-- "What concerns me is not the way things are, but rather the way people think things are." - Epictetus 55-135
"Jupiter Jones [MVP]" wrote in message

That his often quoted and also denied by Bill Gates. No one is able to cite a specific source for that quote from Bill Gates so it is most likely a myth.
-- Jupiter Jones [MVP] http://www3.telus.net/dandemar http://www.dts-l.org
"John Jay Smith" <-> wrote in message bill gates claimed that 640k ram is more than enough for any application ever developed.
That was one if his biggest goof ups... talk about visionaries... lol
-- "What concerns me is not the way things are, but rather the way people think things are." - Epictetus 55-135

"but even if he did..." But he didn't, at least there is no evidence to support that he did.
-- Jupiter Jones [MVP] http://www3.telus.net/dandemar http://www.dts-l.org
"John Jay Smith" <-> wrote in message

I would imagine why he would deny it...LOL
but even if he did say it, I can forgive him :-)
-- "What concerns me is not the way things are, but rather the way people think things are." - Epictetus 55-135
"Jupiter Jones [MVP]" wrote in message That his often quoted and also denied by Bill Gates. No one is able to cite a specific source for that quote from Bill Gates so it is most likely a myth.
-- Jupiter Jones [MVP] http://www3.telus.net/dandemar http://www.dts-l.org
"John Jay Smith" <-> wrote in message bill gates claimed that 640k ram is more than enough for any application ever developed.
That was one if his biggest goof ups... talk about visionaries... lol

Actually yeh, I've been looking back and the video I saw was a Channel 9 one, of him actually saying that what was said was codswallop - and yeh, there's no actual evidence of it :o)
-- Zack Whittaker » ZackNET Enterprises: www.zacknet.co.uk » MSBlog on ResDev: www.msblog.org » Vista Knowledge Base: www.vistabase.co.uk » This mailing is provided "as is" with no warranties, and confers no rights. All opinions expressed are those of myself unless stated so, and not of my employer, best friend, Ghandi, my mother or my cat. Glad we cleared that up!
--: Original message follows :-- "Jupiter Jones [MVP]" wrote in message

"but even if he did..." But he didn't, at least there is no evidence to support that he did.
-- Jupiter Jones [MVP] http://www3.telus.net/dandemar http://www.dts-l.org
"John Jay Smith" <-> wrote in message I would imagine why he would deny it...LOL
but even if he did say it, I can forgive him :-)
-- "What concerns me is not the way things are, but rather the way people think things are." - Epictetus 55-135
"Jupiter Jones [MVP]" wrote in message That his often quoted and also denied by Bill Gates. No one is able to cite a specific source for that quote from Bill Gates so it is most likely a myth.
-- Jupiter Jones [MVP] http://www3.telus.net/dandemar http://www.dts-l.org
"John Jay Smith" <-> wrote in message bill gates claimed that 640k ram is more than enough for any application ever developed.
That was one if his biggest goof ups... talk about visionaries... lol

Zack Whittaker wrote:

Actually yeh, I've been looking back and the video I saw was a Channel 9 one, of him actually saying that what was said was codswallop - and yeh, there's no actual evidence of it :o)

You're going to have to check facts faster and bite your tongue when you finally start receiving Microsoft pay-checks. ;-)
Remember, that unlike Bill's supposed remarks, all yours are captured forever on Google's archives ;-) ;-)

Well, there might be that sort of mindset going on, but as far as I know the indexing is not done in RAM. A nice flat database on the hard disk is still much much faster than actually searching the drive and that is how it is done to the best of my knowledge.
"Puppy Breath" wrote in message

Hey Fat Bastard, I'm star struck having a celebrity in our midst! Play us a tune on yer bagpipes.
What about this whole "virtual layer" between the actual file/folder structure and the ability to find things quickly using Search boxes and such in Vista. Don't you think that all that stuff must involve a lot of indexes, and wouldn't it make sense to try to keep those in RAM for performance reasons? Do you think there might be a basic "RAM is dirt cheap and plentiful" philosophy driving that?