plans for 64bit support

[Keith J. Schultz]

Hi All,

	
Am 11.12.2007 um 12:54 schrieb Jochen Küpper:

> Hi Everybody,
>
> On 11.12.2007, at 12:23, Ryan Schmidt wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> I totally agree with Ryan's argumentation on avoiding to many  
> distinct lines of binaries and would suggest the people that are  
> interested in 64 bit support or willing to help, extend +universal  
> to include 32 bit and 64 bit binaries for PPC and Intel, all at once.
>
> [...]
>
>> if indeed 64-bit binaries are useful to have
>
>
> Well, I have been running numerical simulations on 64 bit machines/ 
> OSs already for more than ten years (starting with DEC  
> AlphaStations at the time) because they run considerably faster on  
> the 64 bit architecture or wouldn't run on 32 bit at ll (for memory  
> constraints).
>
> I have not yet done that on Mac OS X but currently use 64-bit  
> variants of Linux, but I do see the use and actual need for 64 bit  
> support on Mac OS X. Especially for some of the nice numerics tools  
> in MacPorts!
>
> Therefore, I think we should strongly consider to support 64 bit in  
> some way.
> See above for my standpoint on Ryan's email.
	I would agree that we need 64-bit support as many work cutting edge  
and 64-bit is needed.
>
>
> As a side-node: I wonder when we finally get rid of 32 bit and,  
> moreover, when we get 128 bit floating point hardware back (Mr  
> Cray, are you still around;)
>
>
	Well, lets see we had the 6502 in the 80s, a little later 16 bit,  
the 90s had 16 and 32 bit, 64 is now
	becomming the standard so I would guess we will 128-bit in about  
another 15-20 years.

	regards
		Keith.