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Addressable bits

Name: ' 2012-02-13 13:20

So, with 64-bit machines we have access to a larger address space than we'll ever need (64k should be enough etc.) and only a tiny fraction of that is mapped to anything sensible on my machine at least. Why not make addresses denser than 8-bits then?

We should have addressable bits! Of course, reading bytes or words would still have to be aligned. I belive this is the next great step in computing.

Name: Anonymous 2012-02-13 15:49

Or do like Java does and use 32-bit pointers to address up to 32GB of memory, as objects are guaranteed to be 8-byte aligned there.

Really, the whole 64-bit thing has gone out of hand. The processors support just 48 bits, some OSes further clamp that to 232 pages (44 bits total), and in either case it's a tremendous waste in the vast majority of the cases.

Most memory-heavy stuff, such as web browsers, easily consume 20-30% more memory on 64-bit mode. That's awful. I just use 32-bit versions of these.

So, what I'm trying to say - I'd do the opposite, something like Java does.

Bit addressability is an interesting concept, though most hardware vendors would be hard-pressed to waste die space on that, and the gains you'd get out of it would be minimal on most cases.

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