offtopic: plans for 128 bit support

[Jochen Küpper]

On 12.12.2007, at 10:20, Keith J. Schultz wrote:

> Am 11.12.2007 um 12:54 schrieb Jochen Küpper:

>> 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.

On the other hand, 64 bit was introduced in supercomputers in the  
1960s and in RISC workstations around 1990 (for example, the Alpha  
21064 (EV4) was introduced in 1992).

Already in the 1970s IBM System/370 had 128-bit floating point  
arithmetic...

Greetings,
Jochen
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