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The Long, Hard Slog to 64-Bits

I love software -- when it works! -- and have been covering it nonstop for over two decades. (It seemed to crash less 20 years ago -- except for the Amiga, of course.) Hardware, to me, was always a bit boring. I mean, a Pentium or Itanium can't do anything without software.

And during all of those 20 years, desktop hardware -- as much of a snooze as I find it to be -- has vastly outstripped software. The only exceptions I can think of are the old Amigas -- which fully exploited the Motorola 68000 processor and a host of dedicated sound and graphics chips -- and video game systems, which likewise push multiple processors to the max.

So here we are, in 2007, years after 64-bit processors became commonplace...largely running 32-bit apps. Our own Keith Ward looked into the situation and has good news, in the form of 64-bits becoming more entrenched for server apps, and bad news in that we'll probably be running 32-bit PC apps on 64-bit PC gear for years to come.

Posted by Doug Barney on September 10, 2007


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