Are we going to 64 bit Assembly?

[dedndave]

i learned vaccuum tubes back in the 60's - lol
in fact, it was a little difficult to understand how transistors worked at first
because i was used to tubes (or "valves", as Z calls them - lol)

nowdays, i am a rare breed because i know tubage   :bg
tubes are still the best for some things (old-timer opinion)

[frktons]

tubes are still the best for some things (old-timer opinion)

As far as I know they are still used for the best quality sound machines.

[cork]

Well my first was a Honeywell 58, :dazzled: god bless me. 
Now I prefer x64 and in ten years x128 as well.  :P

God bless ya old timer!  :cheekygreen:

[dedndave]

they are still used in high-power applications too
i used to have a 2 KW linear for ham radio - had a pair of 3-500Z's in it that glowed a nice orange if you hit them hard   :P

[frktons]

Very nice picture indeed  :lol

[KeepingRealBusy]

Slightly larger than my Computer filpflops.

[dedndave]

yah - and don't drop the transformer on your toe, either - lol

[cork]

Cool picture. That's some good geek porn.

[hutch--]

I have always owned a valve audio amplifier. The current one which I have owned is a 1965 Radford STA15 made by Arthur Radford in Bristol. 4 x EL34 power valves, a GZ34 rectifier and it weighs 35 pounds with all of the trasnformers built onto the chassis.

Still eats a 100 watt RMS transistor amplifier alive.

[dedndave]

Heathkit used to make a mono amp
it was nothing to look at - lol
but it had a pair of 6146's in it for 80 of the cleanest watts you ever heard
it was a kit (of course) - and didn't break the pocket-book
i would love to have a pair of those amps   :bdg

here we go - this is it, i think



actually - this one has (4) 6CA7's (same as EL34)
the one i am thinking of looks very similar, but only has one knob

[hutch--]

This is the Radford.

[dedndave]

i love the handles
do they imply that it takes 2 people to carry it ? - lol

[Rockoon]

I think 128-bit (we are talking about address lines here) in the next 10 years is far fetched, and in fact I think its far fetched to ever happen using traditional transistors like we do.

2^64 = 18,446,744,073,709,551,600

A volume representing this many cubic units would have to be:

(2^64)^(1/3) = ~2,642,246 units wide

So a cube with this many bits would have to be 2.6 million bits by 2.6 million bits by 2.6 million bits

In the past 10 years we have barely gone a single order of magnitude larger in typical installed memory (512 meg -> 4 gig) and I dont expect that over the next 10 years that we will go more than another single order of magnitude larger (4 gig -> 48 gig) if that ever happens...

One of the things we have done in recent times is incorporated the most space-consuming media (video) onto computers .. video has existed for a hundred years and no media that requires more space has yet to be invented .. perhaps when true 3D recording (not this stereo-vision stuff that they are calling 3D) becomes possible.... only then will there be any sort of consumer need...

[oex]

How about SSE XMM0 through XMM7? (I dont know exactly what you mean by address line though)....

We may not use 128 bit numbers much however having wider registers is invaluable for data comparison/transfer

In terms of hard drive addressing I can think of *potential* applications that could be performed on BOINC style distributed computing setups with the majority of the world being online within 10 years with a little imagination

[frktons]

I think 128-bit (we are talking about address lines here) in the next 10 years is far fetched, and in fact I think its far fetched to ever happen using traditional transistors like we do.

2^64 = 18,446,744,073,709,551,600

A volume representing this many cubic units would have to be:

(2^64)^(1/3) = ~2,642,246 units wide

So a cube with this many bits would have to be 2.6 million bits by 2.6 million bits by 2.6 million bits

In the past 10 years we have barely gone a single order of magnitude larger in typical installed memory (512 meg -> 4 gig) and I dont expect that over the next 10 years that we will go more than another single order of magnitude larger (4 gig -> 48 gig) if that ever happens...

One of the things we have done in recent times is incorporated the most space-consuming media (video) onto computers .. video has existed for a hundred years and no media that requires more space has yet to be invented .. perhaps when true 3D recording (not this stereo-vision stuff that they are calling 3D) becomes possible.... only then will there be any sort of consumer need...

Well, somehow this is true, but you have to consider that entrepreneurs
tend to exploit tech stuff in a different way than tech people. They just want
to sell the potential it has, even if it is not really usable for the time being.
The production of new x128 processors could not follow real need but business
need and business is business and our world is driven by that.  :P

We may not use 128 bit numbers much however having wider registers is invaluable for data comparison/transfer

This could be a good reason to have new and more powerful processors,
maybe with a different design to manage bit/bytes stuff in the way the
actual market requires.