Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/17/84 chuqui version 1.7 9/23/84; site daisy.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!hao!hplabs!nsc!daisy!david From: david@daisy.UUCP (David Schachter) Newsgroups: net.micro.68k Subject: Re: 24 vs. 32 Bits Message-ID: <84@daisy.UUCP> Date: Thu, 7-Mar-85 06:56:15 EST Article-I.D.: daisy.84 Posted: Thu Mar 7 06:56:15 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 12-Mar-85 07:47:14 EST References: <350@oakhill.UUCP> Reply-To: david@daisy.UUCP (David Schachter) Organization: Daisy Systems Corp., Mountain View, Ca Lines: 23 In article 350@oakhill.UUCP, Michael Cruess of the Motorola Microprocessor Products division responds to an earlier posting of mine thusly: >In other words, you will not be needing more than 24 bits of addressing for >3 years. Considering how much flak all microprocessor vendors take about >how long it takes to bring a product into full production, you should be >glad that we are starting now. Also, re: ">16 MB": I still maintain that >in discussing microprocessor address pins we are discussing logical >(virtual) addresses (as opposed to physical (real) addresses), and that >logical spaces of more that 2^24 bytes are required by our customers. The >amount of physical memory is not relevant. > 1) Intel managed to get its 80286 into full production a year after delivering working samples to customers. Surely Motorola won't take three years for the 68020, will it? (*-) 2) How many chips in the 80286 class or above are going into sockets in which address spaces >16MB are required? Less than 1/10 of 1 percent? Until large address spaces are routinely needed in the microworld, (about three years for us workstation vendors), 32 bit addressing is overkill. 3) Whether virtual or physical is immaterial. We don't need 32 bit addressing yet (in 99.9 % of the sockets.) We don't need it in the virtual space or in the physical space. We will in three years or so. By then, Moto, Natty Semi, and even Intel will have 32 bit machines. (Intel's 80386 is due for customer sampling in the first quarter of 1986, as of three weeks ago.)