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To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (60465)	10/26/2001 1:56:09 PM
From: AK2004	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 275872

Ten I knew that and I was talking about fallback plan. BTW did not Microsoft announce that they would support hammer? Regards -Albert

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (60465)	10/26/2001 2:58:09 PM
From: pgerassi	Respond to of 275872

Dear Tench: Most of the immediate benefits of 64 bit computing only require the OS to be 64 bit. Even RDBMS systems and other applications appearing to need 64 bits can be satisfied by a 64 bit disk cache (>4GB) and later by virtual memory of more than 4GB. Virtual memory of an IA-32 application is 64TB. The reason it is not used is due to disk being much slower than memory. If was actual memory, it would be a far less problematic solution. Thus, IA-32 applications get most of the benefit of 64 bit addressing without having to change any code. Later, 64 bit code can creep into a few applications on a as needed basis like into a RDBMS, FSE or simulation. And only certain things like the database engine or simulation engine actually need the 64 bit code. All other programs in those applications could be left in IA-32 code like utilities, configuration and the like. Therefore, the amount of code required to be 64 bit is far less than the large overviews would have you believe. Matter of fact, if you read the comments on the x86-64 Linux port, most of the changes are in the virtual memory subsystem, certain system interface code and the task switcher. I think you are confusing the requirement of IA-64 for all code needing to change with the option of changing only that code that needs any of the addressing and processing resources in the 64 bit "Long" mode of x86-64. That change can be done at the program or task level, not everything as in IA-64. Pete