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32-bit to 64-bit - Obsolesence Pains Again?

Posted by Cliff on from the will-history-repeat-itself dept.

robotsrule asks: "Having been in the computer industry a while I distinctly remember the pain of making the 16-bit to 32-bit transition, when Windows made the change to 32-bit support. Any developer who remember the joys of thunking and other kludges that were meant to help code conversions also remembers the arcane marathon debug sessions too. I have not been keeping up with the latest Microsoft Longhorn technical news, or the plans that the Linux community has for 64-bit platform support. Does anyone out there have a reliable prediction for the amount of system shock we are facing when either Longhorn or 64-bit Linux comes out? Will I lose all my favorite 32-bit development tools again as I watch the backward compatibility support dry up as the 64-bit O/S platforms are adopted? Or are the O/S manufacturers making happy noises about long-term support for existing development languages and tools?"

16 of 184 comments (clear)

  1. Happy noises by bluelip · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The happy noises heard are the coins falling into their pockets.

    AMd has been good to us lately. i think they'll continue to 'do the right thing'. Maybe they're the Google of hardware.

    Mike

    --

    Yep, I never spell check.
    More incorrect spellings can be found he
  2. 64 bit linux :-)? by Crimsane · · Score: 5, Insightful

    My latest gentoo install is 64 bit, built from the ground up. works great for the most part. there was no lilo that i saw, but I use grub anyways. other then that i'm not missing anything. I've known people that've ran 64 bit in different distros for a couple months now, and they're all quite happy with it.

    1. Re:64 bit linux :-)? by croddy · · Score: 5, Informative
      1. 32-bit Flash works just fine on 64-bit gentoo. Install 32-bit Mozilla or Netscape binaries, and install the Flash plugin there. No need to switch machines, just switch browsers.
      2. ATI Drivers: I'm afraid you're on your own here.
      3. Sun Java 5 runs just fine on 64-bit gentoo, even if it is missing a browser plugin. Install blackdown-jre and your applets should run just fine.
  3. 64-bit linux by croddy · · Score: 3, Informative

    well, 64-bit linux systems have been available for quite a while now. since the kernel and practically the entire application codebase are available to the public as source code, the transition has been quite painless for end-users. 32-bit emulation libraries have ensured that 32-bit binary programs work almost flawlessly.

    1. Re:64-bit linux by jnik · · Score: 5, Interesting
      Hmm... but this is different. The 16 to 32-bit PC transition didn't require you to go out and buy new hardware.

      Huh!? Sure it did. You couldn't run 32 bit code on a 286. In practice, by the time 32 bit became effectively mandatory (Win95), the sheer horsepower requirements pushed an upgrade more strongly than word size. It'll likely be the same this time around.

    2. Re:64-bit linux by swillden · · Score: 4, Funny

      The 16 to 32-bit PC transition didn't require you to go out and buy new hardware. Years from now, we might all be forced to use a true 64bit AMD to run anything.

      You mean I won't be able to run new software on my 286 any more? That BLOWS, man!

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  4. 64-bit Linux by reynaert · · Score: 5, Insightful

    when [...] 64-bit Linux comes out

    64 bit Linux came out about a decade ago, when it was ported to the Alpha (and, unlike Windows NT for Alpha, it was a true 64 bit port).

  5. 64-bit linux by molo · · Score: 4, Informative

    amount of system shock we are facing when either Longhorn or 64-bit Linux comes out?

    Umm.. no offense, but where have you been? 64-bit linux has been out for a LONG time. Some platforms have been 64-bit kernelspace (sparc64, ppc64, alpha, amd64) and have had 64-bit userspace (alpha) while others have had a mixed 32-bit and 64-bit userspace (sparc, mips, ppc, amd64).

    Most open source apps are already ported. Are you really doing things at a low enough level where you have to worry about thunking?? You might have bigger problems then.

    -molo

    --
    Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
  6. *WHEN* 64-bit linux comes out? by Xtifr · · Score: 3, Informative

    64-bit Linux has been around for about a decade, since the initial DEC Alpha port. There are at least four 64-bit architectures with Linux support at this point, and it's well tested and debugged.

    As for the Windows side, the lessons of the 16->32 conversion were not wasted, abstract types created for that conversion are still in use, and will certainly make the new transition much easier. There will be some bugs that will need to be shaken out, but it's unlikely to be the sort of major effort it was last time.

  7. Don't worry about it... by Sheetrock · · Score: 4, Insightful
    There was a period of years between 32-bit hitting the market and 32-bit being taken seriously as a development target by the majority of developers.

    True, a large part of that was due to MS-DOS being the platform of choice, but the speed with which you need to adapt to the 64-bit environment will be made up for by the relative ease of conversion. We're relatively insulated from the word size of the system, except for the size of 'int' in C, and we won't have to deal with memory managers or extenders -- that's all up to the OS.

    Just keep in mind while you program to be flexible and avoid tying yourself to any OS particulars in an unnecessary way. It's a bump in the road, but nowhere near as bad as it used to be.

    I expect to see 32-bit support in development tools for years yet. Microsoft's window of support seems to be five or more years for operating systems so you've got at least that much time.

    --

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    -- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.




  8. OK - is this the most stupid AskSlashdot today ? by MerlynEmrys67 · · Score: 3, Funny
    Should we start a daily poll on the dumbest question to hit Ask Slashdot on a 24 hour period.

    This one is sure to hit it.

    Been running a 64 bit dual proc AMD Linux for about a year. Been running a 64 bit AMD Win 2K3 Server for about 5 months. Been running a 64 bit Sparc Linux for about 2 years (personally - all of these were out long before I got to them)

    Here is the big difference. When you remember the 16-32 bit port - most of the problems I saw were to memory protection, and dealing with ring transitions. We have all ready solved these problems, so the port to 64 bits is pretty painless.

    --
    I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
  9. Bitness != Pain by fm6 · · Score: 3, Informative
    The pain we experienced going from 16-bit to 32-bit Windows had nothing to do with bitness. Despite having the same name and a big feature overlap, these were actually two different OSs. The 16-bit OS evolved out of DOS, a nasty, buggy and incomplete OS designed by people who didn't even understand what an OS was supposed to do. The Windows layer didn't just provide GUI services, it kludged in basic OS functionality, like pre-emptive multitasking. By contrast, 32-bit Windows was written from scratch by OS geniuses who had previously worked on VMS. They did their best to provide backward compatibility, but there's a limit to what you can do about that wihout screwing up the new OS.

    Porting from 16-bit Windows applications to 32-bit Windows is sort of comparible to the problems you face running Windows applications under Linux using WINE. In both cases, you're going to a new OS, and relying on a compatibility layer.

    A 32-bit Windows application running under 64-bit Windows just won't face these issues. There will be some 64-bit features it won't be able to uses, that's all.

  10. How hard is it, by way2trivial · · Score: 3, Insightful

    without knowing the form the x99986 processor will take, to, while coding for 64bit, to leave room for 128 bit. (I have no idea of the practicality myself)

    got a program that will still be around in five years? telnet client? something?

    great... whilst coding it for 64 bit, leave room for another bit, so in five years, you can 'turn it on' and be that much ahead of the game.

    --
    every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
    1. Re:How hard is it, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      Planning for 128 bits of address space is insane.

      Don't let you be fooled by the fact that 16->32, and 32->64 seems similar and infer that 64->128 is the same.

      First the exponential increase in performance/memory size gives you a linear increase in bit count. Doubling the bit count is a very rare event.

      Second, hitting a limit on 64 bits would mean 4 billion times 4 billion bytes.

      Think about it. 73 millions of 250 gigabytes hard drive *per* application.

      All the movies from imdb.com, in DVD format, in memory. 4500 times.

      An DiVX of your whole life. 43 thousands times.

  11. Re:Oh yeah, what about Java? by cratermoon · · Score: 5, Informative

    > the int is still 32 bits

    Defined that way by the language standard and will always be that way on any platform past, present, and future. That's why it's platform-neutral, because you don't have to deal with ridiculous low-level issues like the size of standard datatypes. All primitive types are fixed by the language standard. These sizes do not change from one machine architecture to another (as do in most other languages). This is one of the key features of the language that makes Java so portable.

    Need more than 2,147,483,647? Try long -- 9,223,372,036,854,775,807. Still not big enough? java.math.BigInteger is arbitrary precision.

    Although programming in Java has lost some of its charm for me, I never ever again want to have to program in a language where I don't know from one platform to the next whether or not a particular bit of arithmetic will overflow.

  12. The difference... by Ayanami+Rei · · Score: 4, Informative

    64-bit mode on AMD abandons the idea of segments.
    You don't need them to get around the 4GB limit (no need for PAE), and no operating system was using segment protection of memory anyway; relying solely on page protection flags.
    Everything in 64-bit mode ends up in a known, fixed location of memory (like on old Macs)

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