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Thread: 32 bits

  1. #1
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    32 bits

    8 bits is long gone. i remember 16bit programs more, then they bit the dust [no pun intended]. soon 32bit will, being replaced by 64bit, followed by 128bit..
    anybody care to speculate on 32bit. it wont be too much longer. a year or 2, maybe 4. firefox has dropped 32bit support recently, i think firefox support for 32bit, last till august, this year 2018. oh well, progress in its many forms an fashions..
    Last edited by oneleded; July 3rd, 2018 at 06:36 AM.
    the only bad question is one that is not asked.
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  2. #2
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    Re: 32 bits

    Quote Originally Posted by oneleded View Post
    8 bits is long gone. i remember 16bit programs more, then they bit the dust [no pun intended]. soon 32bit will, being replaced by 64bit, followed by 128bit..
    anybody care to speculate on 32bit. it wont be too much longer. a year or 2, maybe 4. firefox has dropped 32bit support recently, i think firefox support for 32bit, last till august, this year 2018. oh well, progress in its many forms an fashions..
    It can't happen soon enough as far as I'm concerned. Even 10yr old systems have 64bit processors in them. Why would anyone expect devs to support a platform that virtually no one is using. It's hard enough to keep the current systems up to date and safe without then turning around and duplicating the efforts for antiquated platforms.

    For a couple hundred dollars, you can buy a modern i3 or i5 laptop w/4G RAM and 500G hard drive on eBay any day of the week. Time to move into the modern era. JMHO

  3. #3
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    Re: 32 bits

    good point
    the only bad question is one that is not asked.
    the good Lord give me Major Dyslexia so that i might learn. if you dont understand what i write sometimes, that makes two of us.. i confuse myself..

  4. #4
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    Re: 32 bits

    I do understand, sometimes we have a system for several years that we've painstakingly configured to be the "perfect" system for our use. But over time they just become too outdated and unsupportable. It's happened to me several times and it's always painful to start over, yet it can be fun playing with new technology and the newer software for it. As I get older, the fun factor isn't what it used to be, but I keep telling myself that the mental challenge is good for me.

  5. #5
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    Re: 32 bits

    just checked and while we use 64 bit on work PC, programs such as office, ERP + some legacy stuff are all 32 bit.

    not so long ago there were 32 bit atoms still made there are also plenty 32bit ARMs. i would imagine that at least in the business environment the 32bit is not going away any time soon.

    i am not quite sure why it held on for so long (16bit ->32 bit change was faster as i remember) but i guess it has something to do with bad experience with some 64bit apps at the start. even now some opensource apps that are made for 64bit windows 10 do not work properly on all machines while the 32 bit ones work just fine.
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  6. #6
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    Re: 32 bits

    probably wont go away in the government either, here for a while. they seem to lag behind 20, 30 years, or longer.
    the only bad question is one that is not asked.
    the good Lord give me Major Dyslexia so that i might learn. if you dont understand what i write sometimes, that makes two of us.. i confuse myself..

  7. #7
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    Re: 32 bits

    As a number, 32-bit is limited to ± 2 billion. That's just not enough for modern times; it's only 2Gb.

    As a number, 64-bit is limited to ± 9 quintillion (around 9 times 10^18, or 9 exabytes). That is a gigantic number, enough to last us for well past the foreseeable future.

    Unless quantum computing opens up an unimagined need (like, really unimagined), it is unlikely that we'll ever need a 128-bit machine. Because 128-bit is limited to a humongous gazillion (nearly twice 10^38 to be specific), which makes 64-bit look like a miniscule dot. It even makes the number of atoms in the sun look piddly.

    So don't worry about conversion to 128-bit. It's not going to happen in our lifetime, or that of our children or grandchildren.

    Disclaimer: I could be wrong…
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  8. #8
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    Re: 32 bits

    @ Paddy Landau

    That's mind blowing as hell and good to know that my old computers will still be usable throughout the rest of my lifetime.

    Yeah I used to be a die hard 32 bit user it was the norm and now I'm in the modern 64 bit world and still using 10 year old computers.
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  9. #9
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    Re: 32 bits

    There has been all kinds of processors, including 4 bits, 24 bits, 48 bits *and* 128 bits (DEC VAX for example). I think there even was a 12 bit calculator chip.

    At university, I designed a 24 bit processor and implemented all of two instructions in micro code: add and xor - W00h00.
    Last edited by HermanAB; July 6th, 2018 at 02:18 PM.

  10. #10
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    Re: 32 bits

    Quote Originally Posted by HermanAB View Post
    There has been all kinds of processors, including … 128 bits
    Woah! That's crazy. Some of those old machines, as I recall, had many CPU instructions (before RISC became popular), so for that reason they needed larger words for efficiency. But 128-bit? Wow. They were looking into the far future, ha ha!
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