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Intel Publishes "X86-S" Specification For 64-bit Only Architecture
Intel quietly released a new whitepaper and specification for their proposal on "X86-S" as a 64-bit only x86 architecture. If their plans workout, in the years ahead we could see a revised 64-bit only x86 architecture.
Entitled "Envisioning a Simplified Intel Architecture", Intel engineers lay the case for a 64-bit mode-only architecture. Intel is still said to be investigating the 64-bit mode-only architecture that they also refer to as "x86S". Intel is hoping to solicit industry feedback while they continue to explore a 64-bit mode only ISA.
[...] Under this proposal, those wanting to run legacy 32-bit operating systems would have to rely on virtualization. To further clarify, 32-bit x86 user-space software would continue to work on modern 64-bit operating systems with X86-S.
Also at Tom's Hardware.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday May 22, @03:51PM (7 children)
Even if hardware memory addressing remains at 48 bits for the forseeable life of the universe, I can see many stupidly good reasons to have 128 bit addressing at all levels above the hardware memory addressing.
1. Be able to address every byte of available block storage (. . . be patient, I'll think of a reason why this might somehow be useful to someone somewhere in some obscure use case . . .)
2. Be able to inefficiently address every byte of memory in a cluster of PCs (something like beowulf, but much more gooder). That has to a be a lot better than plan 9 where everything on local network systems is addressable as a pathname as if it were local.
As the subject line sez, it may be 128 for the win, but we don't really need 128 bit addressing for Linux do we?
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by maxwell demon on Monday May 22, @07:47PM (1 child)
We could give every dynamic library its own 64 bit address range and do away with dynamic address calculations. Calling a dynamic library function then would be no more complicated than calling a static one.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday May 22, @09:46PM
There sure would be a lot more space for address layout randomization.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by shrewdsheep on Tuesday May 23, @07:32AM
3. Be able to run Java programs beyond "Hello World" at long last...
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday May 23, @01:39PM (3 children)
Well, I agree with the stupid part...
64 bit addressing already lets you address every individual byte of roughly 20,000,000 terabytes. I can't think of any reason any consumer hardware (or software) could possibly benefit from addressing that.
I mean, *maybe* that's not enough to address Google's entire data center storage archive.... but for anything else? What, you want to be able to address every byte of every computer on the planet? There's not even any rational way to map that onto a linear address space.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday May 23, @01:47PM (2 children)
Simple solution, obvious to any Java programmer. Use an even larger address space than 64 bit. Divide it into subsets where each subset has a different organization in how all of the intergalactic information is ordered.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday May 23, @01:53PM (1 child)
Hmm... nope. I'm not seeing how you got from "rational" to "Java Programmer". };-D
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday May 23, @03:30PM
Is there some path from 'rational' to 'Java programmer' ?
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...