Re: [Nolug] my next laptop

On Sun, 2004-01-18 at 21:01, Alex McKenzie wrote:
> Joey Kelly wrote:
> > Emachines (hush!) just put out an Athlon 64-bit laptop for $1500. I want one.
> >
> > Bad.
> >
> > http://news.com.com/2100-1003_3-5141786.html
>
> Hey, they're bigger than Gateway and Apple...
>
> So what's the deal with 64 bit computing...Doesn't it require all
> programs to be programmed/compiled in 64bits?

The AMD64 (encompassing, so far, the Opteron, Athlon64 & FX51 chips)
design takes that into account. Thus, it has 3 modes:
1. Only 64 bit OS & apps
2. 64 bit OS, 64 bit apps, and 32 bit apps
3. 32 bit OS & apps. (This is how 99% of the Athlon 64 bit chips
   are now being used.(

> (I vaguely remember the migration to 32 bits to be problematic, but I
> was a Mac guy at the time.)

No, because once you get a 64 bit OS, you can still run 32 bit apps.

> Will this fix the year 2038 problem?

No, because the Unix specification is that time_t is 32 bit.
http://www.opengroup.org/dce/info/y2k.htm

-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Ron Johnson, Jr. ron.l.johnson@cox.net
Jefferson, LA USA
"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first
place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible,
you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it."
Brian W. Kernighan
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