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 at 11:52 AM