x86 came out 1978,
21 years after, x64 came out 1999
we are three years overdue for a shift, and I don’t mean to arm. Is there just no point to it? 128 bit computing is a thing and has been in the talks since 1976 according to Wikipedia. Why hasn’t it been widely adopted by now?
This is a bit pedantic, but x64 refers to Alpha, which existed long before 1999. 64 bit x86 (x86-64, or amd64) wasn’t purchasable until 2003, although it was announced in 2000.
There were several additional shifts between 1978 and 2003:
8088
/8086
has what’s essentially bank switched 16 bit addressing which gives 1 MB, or 2^20 bytes80286
has physical support for 16 megs, or 2^24 bytes80386
has physical support 4 gigs, or 2^32 bytesPentium Pro
has PAE support for 64 gigs, or 2^36 bytesAMD Opteron
from 2003 has support for 1024 gigs, or 1 terabyte, or 2^40 bytesAMD
andIntel
CPUs physically support anywhere between 2^48 and 2^57 bytes of physical hardware (256 terabytes to 128 petabytes)But let’s just use three points of data:
8086
/8088
,80386
, and let’s say the first 64 bitAMD Opteron
supports 64 bits:8086
/8088
, 1978, 20 bits80386
, 1985, 32 bitsAMD Opteron
, 2003, 64 bits1978 to 1985 is 7 years, with a change in addressing of 12 bits, or about .6 bits per year.
1985 to 2003 is 18 years, with a change in addressing of 32 bits, or about .56 bits per year. So far, pretty consistent.
How long would it take to go from 64 bits to 128 bits? At around .56 bits per year, that’d be about 114 years, and we’ve had twenty so far.
Check back in 94 years.